Synchronicity
by electric gurrl
Summary: So the founder of the Agni Kai Triad walks into a bar and sets off a chain reaction of improbable events. — Azula x Ty Lee. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: **Some Quick Facts About This Fic:**  
**Chapters: **12  
**Pairing: **Azula x Ty Lee  
**Rated: **T for mild sexual content, moderate coarse language, mild blood and gore, violent references and mature humor.  
**Notes: **This is just a short-ish story. It was rewritten to comply with post _Smoke and Shadow _canon and to clean it up. It also was on hiatus for several months but now is back in business.

* * *

**Synchronicity**

* * *

"_Do you think the universe fights for souls to be together?  
Some things are too strange and strong to be coincidences."  
\- Emery Allen -_

* * *

**Chapter One**

* * *

So, the founder of the Agni Kai Triad walks into a bar, and promptly knocks over a table.

Today, the sun has yet to reach its apex in the Dragon Flat Boroughs of Republic City, and the bar is, as expected, deserted. But despite the solitude, the small shriek escaping her lips as her bleeding wound hits the heavy wood is as quiet as she can keep it.

And then, suddenly, a relatively stunned waitress throws open a dusty closed door and clomps into the room.

The agonized intruder wipes her lip with the back of her hand and stares wordlessly ahead of her at the only witness of her intrusion. And the intruder cannot believe her unfortunate luck. First she gets slashed open by an ice blade, and now she has to deal with some airheaded waitress who will probably immediately tell the police.

"It's not even midday, what is _anyone _doing in this pathetic dive?" demands the dying woman, her tone still fierce despite her rattling breath. "Not that anyone would even be here during business hours... I mean just looking through the window I felt bad for the poor soul who wasted their life buying it..."

"That pour soul would be me," replies the shadowy figure and the dying woman swallows blood.

"I assumed you were a waitress from..." and she changes her mind halfway through her sentence.

"... and I wouldn't miss that voice anywhere... despite your questionable fashion decisions," remarks the bar owner as she steps away from the dark door frame that rendered her to appear as only a silhouette. "You were much better dressed when you had a staff to do it for you. And your hair, I just..."

Azula only shrieks in rage in response, no longer feeling the need for pleasantries. "Yes, completely ignore the fact that I'm only dying on this filthy table, Ty Lee! I'm sorry that I'm not pretty enough while bleeding out!"

It then takes longer than it should for Ty Lee to notice the blood soaking Azula's clothes that she is futilely trying to keep in with one palm pressed against her ribcage. She looks even more sallow than she usually did, and while she wears a fearless expression, her golden eyes show her complete and utter panic.

_She is bleeding to death._

It has been nearly twelve years since the comet. It has been ten years since Ty Lee last saw Azula, bound, careless, chapped lips parted with her face against the floor and her bangs draped carelessly over her eyes. It has been eight years since she resurfaced. It has been five years since Azula broke her house arrest and left in the middle of the night without saying goodbye.

Azula liked disappearing. But she always reappeared somehow, some way, at some point in time.

And, as usual, Azula shows up in the last place Ty Lee would ever expect her.

"Uh, okay," is Ty Lee's weak response as she stares at her dying ex-girlfriend and realizes something must be done other than staring at her with a slack jaw. Of course Azula would choose to force herself into Ty Lee's life again by stumbling, dying into her bar. "Stay there. Not that you're going to run away..."

She nervously laughs at her own feeble joke as Azula keeps her pale lips clamped, and Ty Lee quickly scurries behind the glossy bar counter to find a clean bottle of alcohol. Right, right... _stopping bleeding _seems to be the most important thing at this point. Ty Lee licks her dry lips and rummages around for the box with cloth bandages and a few bottles of herbs. There are more injuries in a dive bar than one would expect (or perhaps _just _as many as one would expect).

Azula coughs and touches the blood with a surge of panic that she thinks only makes her bleed out faster. The rush of wet heat over her hand is testament to that. She claws at the table that might be her deathbed as she impatiently waits for Ty Lee to stop her aggravatingly loud rummaging. It is giving her an even worse headache, and laughs in the face of the fact that this is a time sensitive manner.

Time sensitive because there is only so much blood in Azula's body. Time sensitive because Azula has no idea if she has been followed by Ayako or any of her cronies. Time sensitive because Azula is fairly certain that there is not a single person alive on this planet who _isn't _casually looking for her to turn her in to the Red Monsoons, or the police, or ─ worst of all ─ _Fire Lord Zuko._

Finally, Ty Lee stops twiddling her Agni forsaken thumbs and returns with a (thankfully) clean box of concoctions, bandages and the clear glass bottle of white liquor in her trembling left hand. Azula then suddenly has the realization that she is placing her life into the hands of a girl who used to call elbows 'arm-knees'.

Ty Lee nervously licks her lips again and says, "I'm not a doctor─"

"Not with your brains," Azula interjects with a haughty roll of her eyes that makes Ty Lee's eyebrow twitch.

"_Shut _up if you want any painkiller," she snarls and Azula swallows her displeasure with another good ounce of her own blood. "What do I get myself into if I save you?"

"_Every single fucking spirit_, you moron, I am drowning in my own blood!" Azula snarls and Ty Lee inhales sharply.

"Just stay calm, okay," Ty Lee says quietly as she removes the cork from the bottle.

"Stay calm?" Azula bursts into a fit of mirthless laughter and Ty Lee grits her teeth.

"Take off your shirt, will you?" Ty Lee grumbles as she lays out the bandages neatly.

Azula hesitates briefly and Ty Lee wonders why, given that it isn't as if they haven't slept together. She finally strips off the soaking, bloody shirt and lets it fall, with a sickening _squelch_, to the floor of Ty Lee's bar. That would probably not impress the health inspector or Chief Bei Fong.

"Alright," Azula says and Ty Lee is distressed to see that her bra is also blood soaked.

Weakly, Ty Lee flicks her damp towel on the blood, trying to clean it off enough to get a good look. This is much, much worse than she imagined it to be. Perhaps Azula at last has a right to be bitchy.

"It's just a... scratch," Ty Lee squeaks.

"I'm not blind, and I'm not completely numb yet. Don't lie to me. Just stop the bleeding," Azula snarls, now chalk white.

"Right, right," Ty Lee stammers as she pours the alcohol on the already bloody cloth and presses it to Azula's skin with her eyes squeezed shut.

"You missed it. _You _keep your eyes open. I'll close mine," Azula snaps and Ty Lee opens her eyes. She did miss the laceration by a long shot for something so large.

"Okay, okay, my eyes are open this time," Ty Lee insists eagerly before finally cleaning the wound as Azula hisses through her teeth and winces. "Press down," Ty Lee says as she wraps the bandages, not even thinking about the contact of her skin or how she can feel Azula's breath on her neck. Her mouth smells only of the raw, metallic stench of blood.

"Well, that took far too long. You call yourself a─"

Ty Lee does not find out exactly what she falsely considers herself because Azula hits the floor as Ty Lee narrowly misses catching her. Ty Lee grimaces before checking for a pulse, breathing a sigh of relief once she realizes that it is muted, but Azula is alive and (mostly) well but probably (definitely) very angry, and carrying her through the bar to her apartment upstairs.

It is only after the madness of Azula bursting in, after years of not seeing her, after Ty Lee decided to completely start over.

"Oh, just go back to the palace one more time for a play date, Ty Lee, you don't have to see her again if you don't want to, I promise," Ty Lee mutters sarcastically in an impression of her mother she wishes someone were around to see (it's quite good).

An excellent Azula impression a little louder: "Oh, I just want to stay for the show Ty Lee... I'm not going to rope you into a horrible adventure... or set anything on fire..."

Suki's sweet tone that sugar coats the worst of things:"Oh, come to the Fire Nation, Ty Lee. Zuko's trying to find his mother. It'll probably be closure for you."

Zuko feebly attempting to be encouraging. Oh, she has the rasp down so well: "I'm sorry she left you and all but Republic City is really great. You should try it. I mean, if you're looking for a completely new life, it's a completely new place."

"How could this get any─?"

And there is a loud pounding on the door of her apartment.

"I'm not finished yet! I was saying, how could this get any worse? There, now you can ─" The pounding on the door just becomes increasingly louder. "_Spirits_, I'm coming!" Ty Lee screams as she tugs on her braid and slips down the narrow, dented stairs to the small door. She swings it open and finds herself face to face with a stranger.

It's a young woman, muscular, very pretty and with a gentle smile on her lips. Ty Lee breathes a short sigh of relief as she realizes it isn't the police (yet). She can only assume Azula's scuffle was with the law, because, honestly, who else would she be fighting?

"Hi," the woman says and Ty Lee realizes she may have temporarily lost the power of speech. Today is just far too absurd for her quiet, calm, peaceful life in Republic City. "I'm Ayako Moto and I'm looking for my daughter."

Ty Lee chews on her lip for a moment, wanting wholeheartedly to believe the woman who _does _look like a young mother. But Azula showing up bleeding to death coinciding so neatly with a runaway child is just... _too suspicious_.

"What does she look like?" Ty Lee inquires, examining the woman at her door closely. She has dark hair, light skin and bright, bright blue eyes. Clearly Water Tribe with a little Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation Colonial mixed in. Ty Lee learned that there were a surprising amount of waterbenders and Water Tribe men and women already in the Earth Kingdom when she began moving around and wound up in Republic City.

And a significant portion of them wound up quite heavily involved in the ever increasingly violent saga of the Triads of Republic City. The Triads are not welcome in this neighborhood. Ty Lee fits in just fine in the Dragon Flats Boroughs, given her nonbender status, lack of any financial backing save for a Fire Nation name that means nothing in the United Republic. But benders, the rich, the people who oppress these citizens.

They are not welcome here.

"Me. Uh, well, green eyes, though, like her father," Ayako says smoothly and Ty Lee would believe her if it were not for the slight flicker of her pupils when she added on the bit about green eyes. Ty Lee quickly scours her body for any signs of a lie, and that is when she sees the dried blood on Ayako's light blue clothes, and Ty Lee hides a gulp.

"Right. Well, I haven't seen her," Ty Lee states quickly before slamming the door in Ayako's stunned face. But the intruders hand juts out and blocks the door before she forces her foot through and steps inside.

Ty Lee takes her down just as Ayako summons her first tendril of water. Her sapphire eyes light up in utter horror, and Ty Lee has to admit she does enjoy the brief rush of an assailant's stunned expression.

"What did...?" Ayako stammers, her eyes as wide as saucers.

"Nothing irreversible," Ty Lee replies brightly and Ayako takes in a rattling, ragged breath through her parted coral pink lips. "Don't _make _me do something irreversible."

Ty Lee winds up gathering all of her belts and fashioning a very crude set of restraints from them, and sets a bar chair at the foot of the stairs, out of earshot of Azula and Ty Lee, and out of earshot of any of her cronies who might be waiting.

_Wonderful_, is all Ty Lee can think as she finishes tying up and gagging her unwelcome guest. _Yet another thing Azula has made me an accomplice to..._

She examines the immobile and frightened Ayako for any markings or weapons, and finds a tattoo on her wrist symbolizing the Red Monsoon Triad. So, Ty Lee's gang theory was more or less correct.

But why _Azula _has run afoul of one of the two most dangerous gangs in Republic City is not something Ty Lee is very keen on knowing the answer to.

[X]

Azula dreams of a memory while she is unconscious from blood loss, and, this time, it is a good one.

_The lamp is glowing light orange in the bedroom in Ba Sing Se. Azula is pacing, and has been pacing for almost an hour as Ty Lee slowly and methodically brushes her long chestnut hair, enjoying the gentle tugging on her scalp and the smooth way the comb parts the multitude of glossy strands mussed by her braid. They are both garbed in green and half dressed._

_Azula suddenly stops pacing and Ty Lee is snapped out of her reverie. The princess looks at her friend and then walks to her, sitting at her side._

_"Princess," Ty Lee says, realizing Azula is not going to voice what her head is screaming at her, "it's going to go great. You are a genius, a completely evil genius and I love it and ─"_

_Azula's lips press against hers, their teeth knocking together at the first contact. Ty Lee enjoys the swift rush of heat and she kisses Azula back, even more fiercely. Their lips part for a moment as Ty Lee rests her forehead against Azula's for a moment._

_It is almost tender, almost sweet, almost like real couples and not whatever they are. Azula is not sure if she should enjoy it or not, but she does admit it is keeping her mind off of the doubts swimming inside of her, screaming from all sides about how she will fail._

_Azula kisses her again, and they fumble with each other until the moon is at its apex. _

Azula is roused from her blissful and nearly comatose slumber by a heavy splash of cold water hitting her face. Her first thought is the Red Monsoon Triad and she tries to sit up in panic but finds her body weak and nonresponsive.

"Azula, wake up," demands a voice the moment her eyes flutter open and blink away the frigid water on her skin. She feels faint and her jaw is numb... as is the rest of her currently. "Who are you running from? Who am _I _now running from? A Red Monsoon Triad member just tried to break into my house to get to you. Some Ayako Moto."

"Is she alive?" Azula demands, trying to sit up but finding her body utterly unwilling. She does manage to seize the corner of the cotton blanket and rub the water off of her dripping face.

"Why are the Red Monsoon Triads trying to _kill you?" _Ty Lee hisses violently.

"Well, the Triple Threat Triads are also trying to kill me, but admittedly the Red Monsoons are doing a better job... the Terra Triad is a _joke_..."

Ty Lee clenches a fist. "Azula, tell me right now if you're a gang member. _Right now_."

The princess makes a groaning sound that Ty Lee has never heard before. "... not exactly."

"What do you _mean _not exactly?" Ty Lee's eyebrow twitches in frustration.

Azula licks her lips and then rakes her teeth across them. "I mean, I'm not a gang _member_... I might have, hm, encouraged and controlled the development of a budding group of organized criminals."

It takes Ty Lee a moment to figure out her slippery and intentionally misleading words. But then she glares. "You _founded _a triad. I don't... is _war criminal _and _fugitive _not enough for you? What _triad _did you _start_?"

"That doesn't even merit a response, Ty Lee," Azula replies and Ty Lee is baffled at how she can remain so haughty when she has just placed the person who saved her life into this situation.

"Okay, there are three things we are going to do," Ty Lee says quietly and Azula looks at her as if _she _is the villain in this scenario. "We are going to somehow deal with the gang member in my stairwell. We are going to clean up any and all traces of your existence here. And then you are going to leave and I am going to have several glasses of wine and go to sleep."

"It's not even dusk yet," Azula snarls and Ty Lee just rolls her eyes with her mouth open. "You can't have several glasses of wine and go to─"

"I can _do _whatever I want! As soon as you help me prevent myself from a watery grave in Yue Bay, seeing as _you _got me into this."

"That's absurd," Azula says lightly and Ty Lee does not even bother arguing. "That's _absurd_! I didn't even know this was _your _bar. I mean, I thought you were a person with some standards and elephant-rats turn their noses up at this place."

"If you insult my business again, I will chi block you and throw you into the alleyway," Ty Lee says with a forced grin and Azula is briefly silent.

"I don't understand why you couldn't afford somewhere nicer. Your parents are some of the richest people in the Fire Nation," Azula remarks, trying to justify her contempt.

"My parents disowned me after you threw me into prison. You would remember that if you cared remotely about anyone but yourself," Ty Lee says as she grabs Azula's numb arm and forces her to sit up. "I've had to deal with life on my own and I am completely capable. Also: Zuko at least left Mai a note! And I find it pretty hard to imagine you've been coasting so easily as a fugitive. How'd you even get out of the Fire Nation with half the army looking for you?"

"It's not a story you need to know," Azula says sharply and Ty Lee could swear she detects some pain in Azula's voice. "I'll help you deal with Ayako, and then we can happily part ways."

Azula stands up and instantly falls onto her face, shrieking from her legs giving out beneath her. Ty Lee snorts and laughs as Azula tries to push herself back up. The princess sucks in her cheeks as Ty Lee at last grabs her arm and helps her to her feet, cautiously letting the blood flow restart and Azula to steady herself.

If Azula were not pale from nearly bleeding out, she would probably be blushing flag red.

"She's downstairs. Come on," Ty Lee says, wanting to get this over with as fast as humanly possible.

Azula follows her through the apartment, which Azula examines with disdain and distaste as she passes the tacky decor and crumbling disarray. Well, what can she expect from a woman who lived in a circus and on a ramshackle peasant island? Honestly, Azula has stayed far more disgusting places in her travels since everything horrid that happened to her.

When the two women reach the stairwell, Azula squints at Ayako for a moment, quite enjoying the absolute horror in her sapphire eyes. Ty Lee has not lost her touch, Azula supposes, even after all of these years.

"Hello," Azula purrs and Ty Lee can see the wickedness in her. It is both hot and infuriating, and Ty Lee is unsure what to make of it. "You certainly took a chunk out of me with that ice blade."

Ayako just looks at her in silence. Well, Azula supposes that she _is _gagged. And, so, very kindly, Azula removes it with a loud _rip_, and she is promptly spat on. Her instantly reaction is to light her hand on fire, but she stops just short of it colliding with her enemy's face.

Azula studies her for a moment, the way she flinches beneath the blazing blue flames but her expression remains stolid. It is _almost _admirable.

"Tonight's the full moon. Good luck getting home," is all Ayako says and Azula just smirks. "And good luck staying safe here."

"Do any of your cronies know about this place?" Azula inquires, breathing it directly into Ayako's ear. Ty Lee is rather unnerved by the scene; it is something she has not seen since her days working for the Fire Nation in the One Hundred Year War.

"Not yet," Ayako replies and Azula is amused that she was honest. She probably should have lied.

"Well, I suppose all I really have to do to protect myself from the full moon is make sure your friends have no idea where I am," Azula whispers, her hot breath on Ayako's neck. She smells strongly of blood and the perfume of the girl beside her.

Ty Lee opens her mouth to protest, her eyes flashing as Azula strides behind Ayako and touches two fingers together.

"Azula, don't─!" but there is a blinding flash and crackle, static permeating the air, and now Ty Lee has a corpse in her stairwell. The bartender rubs her temples and squeezes her eyes shut. "Wow. I... I am at a loss for words. You just executed someone in my bar. Wow."

"It isn't as if she was innocent. Every Red Monsoon commits a murder to earn their tattoo," Azula says, lifting up Ayako's limp wrist and gesturing to it.

Ty Lee just furrows her brow, groans and looks at Azula. "Well, I suppose now we're going to have to hide a body together. What great bonding! And all before noon..."

"You have gotten really bitchy over the years," Azula remarks and she instantly regrets it from Ty Lee's vicious glare.

"Help. Me. Hide. This. Body," Ty Lee says hoarsely, pressing on the bridge of her nose. She cannot believe this is happening to her, and is wondering if it is all some kind of horrific and vivid nightmare. "And then please, kindly leave my life permanently."

Azula shrugs and starts to undo the leather straps.

[X]

Azula and Ty Lee make it back to the apartment after hiding a body together, which Ty Lee honestly thinks might be the most absurd thing that has happened to her in very, very long time. She supposes it is a sign of _true friendship_, even if she never thought she would see Azula again.

"Are you intending to open tonight?" Azula inquires, although she doubts there will be very many disappointed patrons.

"No. I really don't want to do that after today," Ty Lee replies as she wonders how she managed to get herself into this situation.

"So, are you going to drink your several glasses of wine and go to sleep now?" Azula inquires sharply, crossing her arms.

Ty Lee nods. "Yes. But I'm not going to kick you out yet."

"Oh, your generosity is always impressive," Azula purrs sarcastically and Ty Lee sighs huffily.

"Don't make me regret it," she snaps and Azula rolls her eyes.

"I have my own place to live, you know?" Azula remarks as she runs her finger beneath a painting and the pad of her forefinger gathers a layer of grime. "A place that is less likely to kill me of infection."

Ty Lee grimaces for a minute. "I don't think you should go back right now."

Azula cocks an eyebrow. "You were pretty eager to get rid of me earlier."

"It's what Ayako said," Ty Lee admits as she rummages around for a bottle of wine. "I'm not sending you across town back to wherever you've been living on a full moon when there's an entire gang of ruthless waterbenders after you."

"How considerate, but I can manage just fine," Azula purrs and Ty Lee rolls her eyes.

"If I hadn't been here this morning, you would've bled to death in the bar," Ty Lee reminds Azula and the princess's smug smirk instantly fades. "Clearly, you've gotten in over your head."

"I would've saved myself."

"How?"

"Well, I'm not sure but I would have. I've survived just fine on my own," Azula says coldly and Ty Lee at last finds the bottle of dark reddish purple wine and sets it on the table with a clunk.

"What are the chances that, of all the places in this city, you'd run into me?" Ty Lee asks as she uncorks the bottle with her thumb and starts looking for glasses.

"I have no idea," Azula admits with a shrug. "You're not going to tell anyone else we know, are you?"

Ty Lee finds a glass and starts pouring. "I don't know yet. You've let everybody who loved you think that you were dead for years. I think they deserve to know."

"That is absurd. I'm sure they've swept me under the rug as fast as possible. ZuZu doesn't like to be outsmarted… as easy as that is," Azula says confidently before holding out her hand for the glass of wine. Ty Lee simply looks at her, touches it to her own lips and downs half of it in one gulp.

"You lost a lot of blood. This is mine." Ty Lee seizes the bottle and goes to sit down on the sofa as Azula watches her from the other side of the room. "How did you even end up here?"

"A lot of weird coincidences, of course."

Ty Lee rubs her lips together and finishes the rest of her drink. "Same here. How have you been doing?"

"Quite well for myself. I did found a Triad and made an actual life for myself instead of being forced to live out the existence of my brother's _indoor cat_," Azula says before feeling dizzy again and sitting down. Ty Lee waits for Azula to discuss her chain of events, but she does not seem to want to. And Ty Lee won't push her.

"I'm kind of not sure if you're real right now," Ty Lee murmurs as she fills her shimmering glass for the second time. "It feels so weird. You do look better than I last saw you."

"That's not difficult," Azula admits uncomfortably. She could go into the details about the fact that half of the time she is still that much of a mess, and sometimes she just completely breaks down and collapses into herself. But right now she is on top of the world, and Ty Lee will never have to know, just like the people who work for her.

If the Agni Kai Triad were to find out about her weakness, they would stop taking her seriously altogether. And Azula has a very easy time hiding her broken thoughts.

"Have a drink," Ty Lee offers with a sigh.

"I thought I had lost too much blood." Azula studies Ty Lee with her judgmental golden eyes and Ty Lee pushes a glass into Azula's hand.

"Have a drink."

Azula does not protest.

[X]

Ty Lee dreams of what she wishes were a memory in her fitful and sweaty sleep.

_Ty Lee can feel the sand on her skin as she presses her damp, half naked body against Azula's. Her head rests on her shoulder, Azula's protruding clavicle pressing against Ty Lee's soft cheek. Their lips meet and their legs interlock, and Ty Lee can feel the strong heat between her thighs._

_It is complete and utter bliss._

And Ty Lee wakes in the dead of the night with her heart pounding and the heat still present.

No, no, no, no, no, no...

She is _not _letting Azula's claws sink into her again.

No, no, no...

[X]

In the morning, Azula and Ty Lee are both immensely relieved to have not slept with each other by mistake. That makes Azula think that perhaps today is off to a decent start, and she will not run into much trouble when she goes home. So long as Ty Lee does not blab to Zuko about this, which, given her track record with secrets, she probably will.

"Take me with you," Ty Lee says as Azula tries to creep out of the apartment before her old friend wakes.

"Hmmm... _no_. I do not want you to know where I live," Azula says sweetly and Ty Lee crosses her arms. "Don't pout; it's been truly lovely seeing you again. Thank you kindly for saving my life, and I will just be going now. Perhaps I'm just a dream."

Ty Lee closes her eyes and sighs. "You should probably get medical attention for that wound."

"You're not my mother. Nice seeing you again." And Azula is gone before Ty Lee can find the proper words to say. And perhaps that is a blessing.

Ty Lee immediately gets to work, contemplating her losses from having closed the bar down last night in order to deal with the Red Monsoon Triad. She knows it was probably an incredibly poor decision, but Ty Lee is not notorious for her good life choices.

She tries to push Azula out of her mind.

_You just had a sex dream about her, that doesn't mean you still have feelings for her..._

And then there is a pounding on the bar door. Fantastic. Ty Lee groans and walks to the door before opening it and revealing a very familiar woman.

"Hi," Ty Lee says brightly, but the Chief of Police's expression remains as stony as her element.

Ty Lee hosts a brief mental fantasy of ripping Azula into little shreds, and invites Toph inside.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

* * *

Chief Toph Beifong doesn't spend much time in the Dragon Flat Boroughs. And she also is extremely exhausted from her morning of escorting dignitaries and dealing with the obscene pile of work after the gang fight in this neighborhood.

She has very little patience at this point.

"Hi," Ty Lee squeaks, genuinely unsure what she has done to warrant Chief Beifong's surprise visit. It is impossible that news could have traveled about Azula _that _quickly.

"Let's skip pleasantries," Toph replies coldly and Ty Lee licks her lips. "I was told there was a fight between Red Monsoons and Agni Kai members last night, and, well, none of the places of business really interested me except for yours."

"I didn't see a fight," Ty Lee says and that's not a _lie_, and so hopefully Toph cannot tell. She didn't see the fight; she just saw Azula in the aftermath. "I mean, I've been here, but there's pretty much always gang fights going on in this borough. It's not abnormal, or anything."

Sweating. _Agni_, she wishes she weren't sweating so hard.

The earthbender's expression remains stoic. "Have you ever paid protection money to one of the Triads?"

"I don't see why that matters," Ty Lee stammers, swallowing and rubbing her sweaty palms on her hips.

"Because I will charge you as an accomplice if you have."

"... _what_?"

Silence. And then Toph just shrugs with a smirk. "I'm seriously just fucking with you right now." A small laugh. "You were so scared; your heart was... oh just... Some weird people I don't associate with or admit to knowing in public are here to see you."

Ty Lee's hand rests over her heart as Toph comfortably takes a seat in one of the rickety chairs, not caring that she nearly made her _faint_. And then Ty Lee thinks she might suffer a second heart attack when two people and a few other police officers walk inside.

"This place is nice," uncomfortably remarks Zuko. "I like... the... paint."

To which Ty Lee attempts to respond, but she just opens her mouth and struggles to breathe.

"You don't like the paint. It's the grossest shade of yellow I've ever seen. Stop lying. You're bad at it," says his wife. "Also, there are no not gross shades of yellow. It is worse than orange."

"Isn't orange a shade of yellow?" Zuko asks and Mai shrugs.

"It's a mixture of yellow and red, so I don't know," Mai responds, and they both stare at each other for a moment. "Red is okay. Paint this place red, Ty Lee."

The bartender again, opens and closes her mouth, still speechless.

"Well, I think this place is really well decorated," Toph interrupts, already tired of this conversation. "And yellow is my favorite color. There actually was a fight yesterday though; if you hear anything, tell me. Which is _why_, I said we should probably not bring important dignitaries into the _Dragon Flat Boroughs_."

"Dragons are Fire Nation, though," Zuko suggests hopefully.

"All the Fire Nation people here hate you," is the first thing Ty Lee says. "At least half of the graffiti is very obscene things about Fire Lord Zuko. You're probably most likely to die in a Fire Nation neighborhood."

"It's good to see you too," Zuko replies, his lip curling in distaste.

"Why are you two here?" Ty Lee asks quickly, still breathless. "And how did you find me? I didn't tell anyone I was moving here."

"Never underestimate the power of being friends with the Chief of Police," Zuko explains and Ty Lee scowls. "We thought you'd be excited. It's not every day you get a surprise visit from old friends."

"Right-right, well, I'm going to go upstairs and lie down and cry for a while now. You people can make yourselves comfortable," Ty Lee declares before scuttling up the stairs so quickly that she trips twice.

Now she has to move fast, as fast as possible. Removing any signs that there has been anyone in this apartment other than her. The bar was completely cleaned, but then, before Ty Lee could move on to upstairs, everyone just barged in on her.

She shoves the bottle of wine and two glasses into a cupboard, slamming it shut twice because it keeps popping open. After that, she dashes to the room where Azula was unconscious, and finds the sheets stained with her blood. Ty Lee swallows and tears the sheets from the bed, gasping for breath as she realizes it is made _far _too tightly.

Ty Lee then remembers Azula's shirt, the one _also _soaked with blood, and Ty Lee runs across the apartment to the bathroom, where she had thrown it into the sink. Ty Lee lifts it up and realizes she has absolutely no idea what to do with it, and decides she will try to turn it inside out to mask _some _of the evident blood, and tuck it away.

As she is fumbling with the shirt, something small falls out into her hand. A matchbook.

Ty Lee rubs her eye as she studies the matchbook. _Matchbook_. What the fuck would _Azula _need with a _matchbook_?

Matchbooks, which are strange things that only very rich, haute restaurants and bars have, seeing as they are all painted and folded by hand, and matches are relatively unpopular compared to the more widespread flint and firebending. A sheer luxury item.

_That the world's greatest firebender has no need for!_

Ty Lee squints at it for a moment, frustrated that the dark brown bloodstains are covering up most of the advertisement on it. She manages to rub it clean enough, despite the paper crumbling slightly, and then can see that it is taken from some bar called Smoke and Mirrors.

So help her, if Azula wanted Ty Lee to find this...

Then Ty Lee shakes her head. That would be ridiculous. She probably had it for some other purpose, that Ty Lee is unsure of. She quickly shoves the shirt into another chipped cabinet and seizes a match from the matchbook and strikes it as she lights all of the bottles of incense she has around the house, to try to cover the smell of blood, antiseptic and Azula's perfume.

Her unwanted guests clamber up the stairs just as Ty Lee finishes.

[X]

Meanwhile, Azula makes her way back to her home on the other side of town, further into the city. It is surprisingly nice for only being a decade or so old. When she first arrived here five years ago, most of it was just construction and shoddy living arrangements for the refugees forced here, along with a few nicer locations for government officials.

It was due to that, that gangs began to form, the nations usually sticking together. Albeit, the Triple Threat Triad was not homogenous, but people have yet to take them seriously. Azula found it miraculously easy to persuade the youth and young adults, the refugees from the Fire Nation, to do something a bit more _elaborate _than their childish gangs.

She made a good leader at the time, particularly to people who felt slighted solely because of being born. Not to mention other gangs were blossoming into more effective organized crime. And who better than a princess robbed of her command for accident of birth, to lead the astray to the bright blue light.

Azula stops at her door, hesitates, and then edges around to climb in through the window. She knows that there is a chance the Red Monsoons could have wound up here. Clearly, there is a snitch amongst her followers.

And she is right. When she walks inside, she finds that the entire house is torn up, papers astray, the floor littered with a mess, pictures torn down from walls, glass shattered, windows broken. Azula quickly deduces that they were not looking for something; they were showing her that they know where she lives, and that they will find her.

She rubs her temples and grits her teeth. This is a massively unfortunate situation, and she walks as quickly as she can to draft a letter about the ambush she suffered, and the fact that there is a traitor in their midst.

The only thing Azula hates more than an enemy is a traitor.

[X]

Zuko sips the cocktail Ty Lee made and has to admit she might be quite good at this bartending exploit.

"This probably ranks in your top five of ridiculous jobs that you're somehow good at. I'm pretty impressed by this juice liquor thing," Zuko remarks with a smile and Ty Lee grins back awkwardly. Mai squints at her and she contemplates leaping out of the window and attempting to escape.

"Yeah. If only I actually had more than three or four customers to try it."

"You could probably make it look a little more inviting and less like a blatant trap made by the world's most careless serial killer," Mai says and Ty Lee rolls her eyes. "This looks like a place where you walk in and think that maybe the last thing you will ever see is hideous peeling yellow walls."

"Look, I impulse bought this place with the last of my inheritance from my aunt. I _regret _it, and I _haven't _had time or money to decorate, okay? It will look nice eventually!" Ty Lee exclaims fiercely, tossing up her hand and then cringing as the matchbook flies from her sleeve and lands in front of Zuko.

"Agni, Ty Lee, _are _you a serial killer?" Mai asks as she examines the bloodstained matchbook that Zuko has recoiled from. "Did you take this as a trophy from one of your victims? Can I have it?"

Zuko picks it up and examines it. "Smoke and Mirrors? That sounds nice. And a place that can afford a pretty decent matchbook. Let's go there tonight. I mean ─ not that there's anything wrong with _your _bar, Ty Lee but..."

"You wouldn't like it," Ty Lee interrupts, her voice constricted with emotion. _Oh Agni, oh spirits, oh fuck..._

"Why not?" Zuko asks so kindly that Ty Lee breaks out into a sweat. He deserves so much better than her lies.

"It's a lesbian nightclub," is the first thing Ty Lee thinks of. "For lesbians only."

Zuko cocks an eyebrow, glances at Mai, who shrugs, and then he slides the matchbook back to Ty Lee. Crisis averted. Oh _thank every spirit_, crisis averted.

Ty Lee feels as if, were Zuko and Mai to show up at a likely haunt of the Agni Kai Triad, she would never be able to sleep again due to fearing for her life. She does not understand why this struck out of nowhere. How Azula showed up after leaving Ty Lee for _years _without even a kiss goodbye, and then suddenly Mai and Zuko wander into her bar.

It has to be some sort of sign, but Ty Lee has no clue _what _it is a sign of.

She just finishes mixing Mai's drink and hands it to her, before pocketing the matchbook.

[X]

"Someone inform me how this ambush happened," Azula says, her eyes flickering around the table in the deserted and locked Smoke and Mirrors Bar. "You know, actually, I'm even open to wild theories. Perhaps our rivals have developed some kind of telepathy. Or have trained messenger hawks to eavesdrop..."

Everyone looks concerned, most of them staring intently at their own hands. They are the people highest on the hierarchy, but Azula does not trust a single soul here. She called them and now they are in the back rooms, tables shoved together haphazardly to fit everyone, and chairs stacked in the corner.

"Maybe you're unsure what I'm talking about," Azula continues, and everyone remains silent. "I went to go meet with a man who promised transnational arrangements with the Fire Nation, in our various exploits and businesses. When I got there, what I found was ice shards thrown at my face and eight Red Monsoons. Please, enlighten me."

Silence. Saiko looks nervous, Azula's second-in-command Meng Kui somehow has _nothing _to say, and the enforcer, Kun Song cracks his knuckles. But no one says a word.

Azula bites her lower lip.

[X]

As Azula is trying to draw blood from a particularly unwilling and horrified stone, Ty Lee is attempting to be a good host to Zuko and Mai while still in a mild panic. She keeps thumbing the matchbook and then mentally chastising herself for it.

Just a coincidence. Azula, Zuko and Mai are just a coincidence. So, maybe Ty Lee hasn't seen Azula in half a decade, and hasn't seen Zuko and Mai since Izumi was a newborn but ─

"Woah, wait," Ty Lee says sharply, "where's your child?"

"Oh spirits, Zuko, we forgot her. What are we going to do? I told you to double check before we left the Fire Nation ─"

"You don't have to make fun of me," grumbles Ty Lee in response. "I'm just a little _rattled _from this thing you two did called _dropping in without calling _and having the Chief of Police _pretend to interrogate me_."

Zuko rubs his neck. "I feel bad about that now. I'm sorry, and Mai and I will try to make it up for you."

"I'm not going to apologize for something as beautiful as Ty Lee's face when she thought she was going to get arrested," Mai states and Zuko clears his throat. "It was even funnier than when your cat had rigor mortis."

"I loved that cat," Ty Lee whispers, pouting. "Kasumi, her name was. If I ever have a daughter, I will name her Kasumi. Mark my words."

"Not a bad name," Mai says, shrugging. And then comes the thousandth awkward silence of the evening. Somehow, things were _less _uncomfortable while hauling a corpse through the back streets with her legally dead ex-girlfriend. "Anyway, Izumi is with Zuko's uncle, in case you're wondering. She'll probably be fine. There are worse places we could've left her."

And Zuko chuckles and says, "Like here. I can kind of feel the infection spreading in my body already."

Ty Lee digs her nails into her palm, her eyebrows twitching. She thinks she _might _just become a serial killer at this point, because she is becoming awfully tired of realizing that _everyone _in this world is a complete asshole except for her.

"So, this place is pretty much owned by crime syndicates?" Mai inquires calmly, not sounding remotely interested, but both Ty Lee and Zuko well aware one of the few things she actually enjoys are gory details. "I imagine with the poverty and alienation, it's like a gang breeding ground."

"I think there are almost fifty, but the only ones that are actually strong are the Red Monsoons, Terra Triad, Triple Threats and Agni Kai. And they're all bending triads which makes a lot of people in this neighborhood pretty angry. The Black Dragons are a nonbending gang here, but they're kind of pathetic, to be honest," Ty Lee rattles off, hating having to think about _triads _after recently getting up close and personal with a corpse of a gang member. "It's like, all the benders from different elements hate each other, and the nonbenders hate the benders, and then within them, everybody hates people from different _nations_..."

"I suppose this city of peace isn't so peaceful," Zuko replies with a grim expression.

Ty Lee cracks her knuckles as the incense flickers and fades. Mai licks her lips, disliking how awkward things quickly became.

And so the Fire Lady announces firmly, "Is it dark out? Zuko and I should probably get escorted back to our hotel or something. Before we're mugged or assassinated."

"Good. Forewarn me before coming back." Ty Lee grins as she rubs her sore eyes.

[X]

To the relief of their escort and Ty Lee, Mai and Zuko _finally _leave to return to their hotel. Ty Lee is able to breathe several sighs of relief, and take an extremely cold bath to try to regain some of her higher faculties. Then, she knows she has to go to Smoke and Mirrors, wherever it is, because clearly the Universe is telling her something by having all _three _of them show up, and then having her randomly find the matchbook of a nearby bar.

After escaping her own deserted place of business and marking it as _closed_, Ty Lee walks through town in the evening, darkness having already fallen over Republic City. The stars are shining, the moon full, but Ty Lee takes no notice of that as she walks to Smoke and Mirrors, wondering why on Earth she is doing this.

Curiosity, perhaps. The inability to stop thinking about how absurd of a coincidence that was. Out of everywhere, everything and everyone in this city, Azula stumbled into Ty Lee's bar. It feels as if it _should _mean something, as if the Universe is trying to _tell _Ty Lee something.

Coincidences are never just coincidences in Ty Lee's mind.

At last, she arrives at the front door, in front of which there is a _line_. Thinking about how much she wishes there were a line at her place of business, she shoves her way past everyone and looks directly at the bouncer in front. His sleeve is slightly rolled up to reveal a faint glimpse of an Agni Kai Triad tattoo.

"I'm here to see Azula," Ty Lee says firmly and he stares at her as if she has said something absurd.

"Don't shout out names like that," he replies and Ty Lee just stares back, gazing directly into his yellowish eyes. He seems to weigh the situation before saying, "If you were here to see her, you would already be inside."

Ty Lee bites at her lip. "_That _doesn't even make any sense. I am here to see her, and I will see her, even if I have to beat you up."

To which, he laughs, of course.

"You know, most cute girls flip their hair and try to flirt their way in." He looks relatively amused as another man brushes past and starts dealing with the line.

"I want you to listen, because I am only giving you one warning," Ty Lee says shrilly, trying to stop herself from punching everyone in this stupid bar and possibly causing an international incident. "I moved to Republic City to try to get a new start because I had a mental breakdown after my awful girlfriend broke up with me because I didn't want to wallow in misery for the rest of my life with her and got kicked out of a league of specialized warriors who dressed _ugly _anyway so it wasn't like I even was going to stay and then I tried a lot of interesting jobs but they all completely sucked then I was on a vacation here and decided to _impulse _buy a bar with the absolute last of the inheritance my dead aunt gave me and everything is going fine until my ex-girlfriend who I thought was gone forever shows up _bleeding to death _and so I had to clean up her blood even though she threw me in prison to rot for over a month and _then _I had to _hide a body _with her and then suddenly Chief Beifong shows up in my bar─"

"Please, please stop," the bouncer says, grimacing. "I will ask Meng Kui if she's expecting you or not."

Ty Lee chomps down and clamps her mouth shut as he disappears into the bar. After a few minutes of Ty Lee watching various people getting turned away, a young woman emerges. Ty Lee can tell from a quick once over that she is ex-military, even though she is dressed to the nines and is clearly trying to look innocuous.

"She says come in."

"Well, good, but I would have come in anyway," Ty Lee snaps and then wonders why she already feels animosity to Meng Kui.

Ty Lee reminds herself to take notes about the decor in this place; it is much nicer than her depressing buyer's remorse of a business. It is very reminiscent of the upscale bars of Caldera, with a little United Republic Influence. They even have a very small fire fountain, and some rather lovely ink paintings.

It is packed, which is something else Ty Lee is envious of. And the _smoke _in the name of the bar is definitely apt, seeing as the entire place burns Ty Lee's eyes, and it is difficult to make out the faces of any of the patrons.

Ty Lee tenses as Meng Kui leads her through a hazy doorway, and up a flight of smooth stairs. If this is a trap, Ty Lee is ready to strike at a moment's notice.

But, when she walks into the room upstairs, she is greeted by, as smug as ever, Princess Azula. There are several other rather intense looking people in the room, but Ty Lee's eyes immediately fixate on Azula.

"How did you find me?" Azula asks slowly and Ty Lee realizes that perhaps Azula didn't intentionally leave the matchbook. _But _why else would she have been carrying one? It isn't as if her bending is suffering; Ty Lee saw her kill the Red Monsoon with lightning.

"You left this," Ty Lee replies calmly, tossing the matchbook to Azula. The girl beside her catches it out of the air, while Azula does not flinch or even react. "So, I found the bar, because..."

"Because...?" Azula cocks an eyebrow.

Ty Lee then sees her sweet little rosy smirk, and for some reason, it pricks every severely numbed nerve within her. Something about the past two days has left Ty Lee ready to snap the next person who frustrates her in half.

"Because I cannot believe," Ty Lee announces shrilly as Azula simply smirks, "that you left like that! Stop vanishing! At least _die _next time you disappear!"

Azula touches her lips and leans back again. "Next time, I will remember to properly fake my death. I will eat this glass if ZuZu waits more than a week to declare me dead and subsequently forget I ever lived."

"Please don't eat that glass. I don't think I can handle looking at any more of your blood," Ty Lee says sharply and Azula just blinks. Meng Kui shifts her wrist and Ty Lee makes note of where she is in the room. "Zuko looked for you for over three years before he gave up. He only quit after it consumed him so much that his friends forced him to move on."

Azula seems to contemplate it for a moment, which Ty Lee supposes is progress of some sort. And then the princess just shrugs.

"Perhaps my brother and mother can learn to appreciate me now that I have robbed them of my _joyous presence _as their housecat," Azula says with a wink that makes Ty Lee want to punch her in the face. She probably _could _take the majority of these people, even if they are Triad members with fighting prowess. "But that's clearly not why you're here. Unless you're trying to look for some kind of home redecorating advice to fix that disgusting bar of yours."

"This bar isn't that good either. Well, elephant-rats turn their noses up at _this_ ─ no... I can't lie like that. This place is really nice," admits Ty Lee with a shrug. She now feels utterly exhausted, as if she has finished an eternity of brutal resistance training.

Azula sets down her drink and looks the softened Ty Lee up and down. "Why are you here? It's no coincidence, is it? Did you feel like crawling back to me? You were pretty sad to see me go this morning."

Ty Lee's eyebrow twitches but she tries to keep calm and collected. Ty Lee is gradually beginning to think that think perhaps this is less about fate and more about _misfortune_ and a colorful past that Ty Lee seems to be incapable of leaving behind her. Everything does seem to fit perfectly in the most negative of ways.

"Did you two... date?" asks the young, slender girl holding Azula's drink for her. She looks somewhat befuddled by the conversation altogether, and the street ruffian who came barging into the club as if she _owned _it, and Azula actually heard her out instead of striking her down with lightning.

"No, Saiko," Azula replies breathily and Ty Lee squints. "Hmm. Yes. I honestly don't know."

"We certainly slept together and you called me your _girlfriend_. That's dating," Ty Lee snarls before realizing that her statement made her sound like she was still _interested _in Azula, which is the _last _message she would ever want to send.

"Of course," Azula replies casually, not bothering to argue. "Sit down. Saiko, get her a drink. So, what is it you're looking for?"

Ty Lee finds a seat and takes it, glancing around the room at the muscular and heavily armed people surrounding Azula. They could _almost _pass for bodyguards, if it were not for the fact that Azula is easily more deadly than all of them put together.

"I just... Don't you think it's strange that we ran into each other like that?" Ty Lee inquires as a drink is shoved into her hand. It smells fruity and she is unsure of that strong scent is meant to cover up poison, or if these people just don't take her seriously because of how cute she is. "Of all the places, right? Shouldn't that mean something?"

Azula shrugs. "Probably not. I don't believe in fate or anything like that."

She does not want to accept the fact that she could have been predestined for her failure and fall from grace. It was after that when Azula stopped believing in luck, destiny or anything in between. Ty Lee, on the other hand, has always believed in things more powerful than herself.

"That's not poisoned," Azula says as she notices Ty Lee nervously eyeing the drink Saiko gave her. Ty Lee hesitates before sipping it. It tastes quite good and Ty Lee downs it in one gulp. "I am, however, very intrigued by the possibilities this may pose. I am also very intrigued by the fact that my brother was in your bar shortly after I left."

"What?" And that is when Ty Lee realizes that this was a horrible, _horrible _idea. Genuinely _horrible_.

Ty Lee is not _stupid_. She has always been clever enough to figure out people and situations, and stay afloat in cutthroat societies and dangerous places. But she can be trusting, _particularly _trusting in fate, patterns and auras, if not people.

"I can think of absolutely no other reason for that than me revealing I was alive. See, I don't believe in coincidences _that _pure," Azula explains sweetly and Ty Lee starts to feel dizzy.

_Azula says it's not poisonous._

Azula _says it's not poisonous._

"I'm... dizzy," Ty Lee says aloud, trying one last time to play naive and sugary. Her eyelids feel so heavy and her chin rests on her shoulder. "And I shouldn't have come here..."

"Probably not," Azula replies.

If Ty Lee lives, she thinks she might just change her name and go live in a cave, away from all of these lunatics. Her vision skips for a second and her breath catches as suddenly Azula is holding her arm, half-guiding half-carrying Ty Lee out of her chair.

She tries to summon the energy to fight, but she cannot even force her fist to clench.

And so Ty Lee surrenders.

* * *

A/N:** About the Matchbook: **I really debated the use of a matchbook in this fic, seeing as I feel the technology/demand is a little premature for it. They became popular in the 1920's onward in our world, and in comparison 100 AG is the end of the war, 138 AG is when the Industrial Boom climaxes with the founding of Future Industries, and 170 AG seems to be inspired by our 1940's.  
Matches have not been invented (seemingly) in _A:TLA _canon, since Iroh uses flint in Ba Sing Se, etc. However, the Fire Nation has always been more advanced, and probably had more demand for luxury items, in my mind, so, seeing as matches have been around since 1366 AD in our world, I'd say the Fire Nation probably had them by the time they had a huge drill and steamboats.  
So, there's my reasoning for including the matchbook as a plot point. I do really worry it seems out of place, but the industrial boom seems quite quick and powerful in A:TLA, once the Fire Nation is defeated, so I hope that wasn't a sore thumb in the chapter.  
Also, I keep telling myself not to cliffhanger but... I can't help it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

* * *

Ty Lee always has been, with no remorse or shame, the kind of person who enjoys doing the opposite of what she is told to do. While other girls feared fire, Ty Lee genuinely enjoyed the exuberant thrill of playing with matches.

She has always tried to pass it off as poor decision making, or just being too dumb and oblivious to notice her mistakes. In truth, Ty Lee is usually well aware of what she is doing... the only reason people do not notice is because she learned well to come up with a tangible excuse before breaking the rules, instead of after, like those who do not derive pleasure from cheating and lying.

Of these poor decisions, the most frustrating of them is the fact that she welcomes monsters into her bed. She is content to set a place for them at breakfast, and to ask them how they take their tea, and be very good at loving beasts and creatures of the night.

Right now, however, she has woken in a monster's bed, taken a shower in the monster's lair, and is now sitting with a place set out for her at the monster's table, and sugar left out for her tea, because monsters do not bother to ask if they already know. Ty Lee is not dumb enough to _again _take a drink briefly after being drugged, or to eat the food for that matter.

All she does is sit down, and wait.

She feels very dizzy at this point, and still relatively under the influence of her drugged drink. The past seven hours have been a disturbingly hazy blur, regardless of the fact that she was deeply unconscious for most of the time. Yet, despite her overlong slumber, Ty Lee does not feel rested. Just like she has slept for a _million years_, and wants to sleep more.

There is a legend in the Fire Nation ─ one that Ty Lee had to read for school ─ that is recorded in lengthy scrolls and probably some sort of propaganda. Most things tended to be. It is the very long story of a hero, of course born of dragons, of course with immensely powerful firebending and lightning bolts, and of course he walks through volcanoes and all of those super dull things.

_No_, Ty Lee, to the mockery of Azula and Mai, cared only for the story about his bride. The rescue of a damsel who seemed to be in distress. A hefty amount of inches into the leviathan scrolls, the hero somehow tangled himself into another unbelievable twists of coincidences, interference from spirits, Agni Kais, shattered weapons and other _boring _parts, and the prize for his conquest was the damsel in distress.

She was surrounded by fire, impenetrable fire that had been placed there by some wicked king of dragons. And she had promised herself only to the man who was able to walk through the several rings and reach the bed on which she slept.

The hero made it through by passing the hallucinations brought on by the flames, stepping over the charred corpses and skeletons of weaker men.

And they lived happily ever after.

(Or maybe not; Ty Lee did not read the rest of the scroll.)

She likes to imagine they lived happily ever after, at least.

* * *

_**Seven hours ago**_, Azula is clutching the warm and limp body of her poorly extinguished old flame while she guides her towards the soft, velvety red sofa. Ty Lee is not quite unconscious yet, and everyone in the room is watching and struggling to mask their uncomfortable and horrified facial expressions. Her eyes keep fluttering open and shut, her throat sore and silent as she tries to scream or fight.

"Sh. Just... close your eyes," Azula at last sweetly, softly says as she touches the pads of two of her fingers to Ty Lee's eyelids and gently closes them. Ty Lee's lips move; she seems to be struggling to speak. "No, relax. Shhh. Yes. Shh."

The princess feels somewhat as if she is smothering Ty Lee to death. It makes her stomach squirm and flip and she hates her body for having that reaction. Ty Lee is old news, and Ty Lee told Zuko about Azula being _alive_, and Azula has a much stronger and more insistent duty to the Agni Kai Triad and her followers than she does to a girl she once slept with.

At last, Azula's captive succumbs and the princess breathes a slow sigh of relief. She was not prepared for Ty Lee to come bursting in, and part of her was concerned that the dose would be too much or too little; she did not have the time for precision.

"What now?" Meng Kui asks gently as her foot moves to step forward. But when Dragon Master Azula turns around, she quickly decides against approaching her. She is not looking her best at the moment, and clearly the scrawny loudmouthed woman who barged in here like she _owned the place _is the source of that discomfort.

Azula cracks her knuckles, popping them one by one. Her scarlet lips are ajar, the lip paint streaked in her teeth starkly visible in the dim light of the smoky backroom. And her golden eyes are glazed, staring intently at the wall behind Meng Kui, Saiko and Kun Song.

"Now we have to figure out who the twenty-five is, as we were discussing before my old... friend barged in and started demanding things of us," Azula purrs regally, but she does not sound like the leader they have all grown steadily to worship. She sounds tired. So tired.

She is tired.

"I'm going to get you some tea," Saiko says hastily and Azula does not seem to even notice that she is being spoken to. All the same, Saiko scuttles out of the room as quickly as her stilettos can carry her.

Kun Song quickly clomps across the room, noticing Azula's faint expression, and pulls out a plush antique chair for the Dragon Master. She passes him and he feels a chill, like a ghost has just moved by him. But Princess Azula does, to the muscular man's relief, take a seat and attempt to regain her composure. The Enforcer bows respectfully and steps away, wishing _he _had offered to go get her tea.

This is the look Dragon Master Azula wears when she just starts ordering murderers for no reason. Or when she disappears for a few days and leaves the Agni Kai Triad in the hands of Meng Kui. It is not a facial expression that anyone who knows her wants to be close to.

"Kun Song," orders Meng Kui, hoping she is not stepping out of bounds, "why don't you go arrange for transportation of our captive to somewhere safer than this bar?"

Meng Kui's yellow eyes flicker to Azula, whom is still staring at her feet, or perhaps _through _her feet, and then she nods to Kun Song. The Enforcer, with great relief, swiftly exits the smoky room to go procure a helping hand.

"Do you," Meng Kui asks quietly as she dares to approach Azula, "do you think she has anything to do with the leaks in information?"

At first, there is only silence. Meng Kui thinks the beating of her heart could be heard from here to Air Temple Island. But then Azula looks up, inhaling sharply and feebly attempting to compose herself.

"No. I think she just suffers from the unfortunate affliction of having a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time," Azula says clinically as she adjusts her position in her seat so that it looks less like her chair is swallowing her small body alive.

[X]

_**Four hours ago, **_Ty Lee wakes with a start, trapped within her own body. It is the most gut-twistingly horrifying sensation she has ever been subjected to. She can breathe, although her breath begins to sputter as she realizes the paralysis that has come over her.

Her mind starts racing until she manages to calm herself down and focus solely on her right foot. She wills it to move, incessantly, forcing, prodding with her thoughts and everything in her. At last her toes break free, the bones making popping sounds as she then twists her leg and regains control of her arm.

She pushes herself up and then forces her eyes to remain open. Her eyelids droop and beg her to go back to sleep, but she knows she has to get out of here as quickly as possible. Shaking off the exhaustion and trying to ignore the sedatives still coursing through her veins, she throws her legs over the side of the bed and looks around.

The room is well decorated and smells like cinnamon incense. Despite the warm color scheme, it is anything but cozy and comforting, and the gilded fixtures are shimmering and look as if they have never been touched. Ty Lee feels almost as if she has fallen asleep in a Fire Nation museum, but she knows better than that.

Outside, the sun is beginning to rise and that gives Ty Lee a shred of hope. She manages to stand up, despite the aching in her limbs and the way her legs feel as if they are someone else's, crudely glued to her numb body. But Ty Lee is strong and she forces herself to walk across the room to the cold glass window.

She starts scratching at it, trying to make it open. Her head feels even fuzzier now and she clenches her jaw. There does not seem to be a visible latch, and when Ty Lee presses her face against the glass and peers out, there is no one on the street below who would notice her if she just started pounding on it.

Well, so much for rappelling out of the window. She looks at her hands and stretches them. Flexing and relaxing, and knowing she probably could take someone down, but she is not putting any gold pieces on her ability to do many flips without hurling up her guts or crashing into a wall.

"I hate her," Ty Lee mutters angrily to herself as she scours the room for something to smash the window open. It will make a good deal of noise, but she thinks she could probably outrun anyone by the time they heard it. "I hate her and I hope they catch her and execute her for being terrible. No... no I just hope they lock her up in some horrible cell where she can never escape or even talk to anyone again... Oh, _that's not very nice of me_. Hrmph. _Screw _being nice; she kidnapped me. I am so done being Azula's... _ugh_... when I get out of here..."

She does not know what she is rambling about after that, just that her violent thoughts about Azula are escalating rapidly. At last, in a room where all of the lamps are nailed down and even Ty Lee's strength cannot free them, she finds a very heavy looking bottle of perfume.

An import from the Fire Nation, Ty Lee notes, noticing only the familiar symbol. She still cannot read the small characters describing the scent for the life of her. They just look like dancing black smudges.

"I try to be nice to her," Ty Lee moans as she takes the crystal bottle back to the window. "I save her life and help her hide a body, but how does she repay me? _That's why you don't do nice things for Azula, Ty Lee_. Well, yes, I know but I try to be nice to everybody, not that any of them ever notice or care..."

She smashes the perfume bottle into the window as hard as she can, and almost cries out victoriously when she hears a loud cracking of glass. And then the breath of excitement comes out as a sigh as she feels herself drenched in perfume, and sees that the bottle has smashed in her hand and the window does not even have a scuff on it.

And then she hears the door on the other side of the room open. Ty Lee quickly spins around, slipping on the puddle of clear perfume beneath her, and stabilizing herself before holding up the broken glass as weapon.

"So," says the silky voice of a woman emerging from the shadowy hallway, "what are you planning on doing with that?"

"Escaping you lunatics," Ty Lee snaps as fiercely as she can, wielding her pathetic weapon with as much ferocity as she can summon.

Azula pauses for a moment, her lip twitching with minor offense at _lunatics_, but she composes herself and sweetly replies, "So, it's you and a broken perfume bottle against the entire Agni Kai Triad?"

"I think I have pretty good odds," Ty Lee slurs loudly, wrinkling her nose at how much stronger the scent of perfume has become. "I am a very competent warrior with a very long resume of incredible feats and also lots of people are definitely looking for me!"

"Like who?" Azula asks, cocking an eyebrow. She looks so _entertained _by this. "It isn't as if you told anyone you were moving to Republic City. I mean, yes, my brother recently visited you, but did you tell them you were going anywhere? I'm actually asking. Did you leave a nice little note on your nice stationary: _I'm going to take on the Agni Kai Triad tonight_? No? You didn't?"

Ty Lee looks at her drenched hand, and sees cuts from the broken glass. It is then that the pain from the perfume seeping into her open, crimson wounds registers and she frowns.

"How do you sleep at night?" Ty Lee demands through a clenched jaw as she sits back down on the bed and tries to wipe off her wet hand.

"Poorly," Azula replies before striding towards Ty Lee and picking up her wrist.

The bartender does not even have the energy or willpower to pull away. Somehow, she feels even more exhausted now than she did when she tried to force herself out of bed. Azula pities her, briefly, and almost regrets the fact that she has to hold her prisoner.

Or perhaps regrets that fact that she was excited to hold Ty Lee prisoner.

"Please let me go," Ty Lee says weakly as Azula examines the cuts and deems them to be minor. "Why are you even keeping me? I don't know anything..."

"I have always known that," Azula whispers gently and Ty Lee attempts to knee her in the gut before realizing her leg did not even move. "I might let you go. Don't lose hope. Good night."

"Good n─ Azula! Azula, don't ─ stop walking away right now!" Ty Lee screams hoarsely before her voice gives out and the princess is gone. "I'm gonna tell your brother on you so hard."

She then curls up and quickly, dizzily falls asleep again.

Why did she even think that the perfume bottle would break a _window_?

[X]

_**Forty-five minutes ago, **_Ty Lee is woken yet again. She looks up and can see Azula.

"Were you watching me sleep?" Ty Lee snarls lethargically.

"Take a shower and go downstairs. Breakfast is waiting for you," says a voice that is not Azula's.

Ty Lee blinks, jarred by the strange sound, and realizes the woman hovering over her does have dark hair and ivory skin, but she has a very different face, and warm amber eyes.

"F-fine," Ty Lee agrees as the girl helps her out of the bed.

Maybe she can escape through the bathroom.

She goes inside and finds it to be one filled with all of the intriguing knobs and complicated soaps that she started running into in the Fire Nation and in wealthier homes. The disparity in progress is strange to her. She remembers going to Kyoshi Island and feeling as if she had been sent back in time. Republic City feels like being propelled into the future.

Slowly, she examines the surroundings, sees that even she cannot fit through the petty excuse for a window, and strips off her clothes. She keeps her underwear on, not caring if it gets drenched, because there is no way she is getting naked in a house where she could be killed at any moment.

Why she is even _obeying _and getting in the shower is inexplicable. Maybe she just does not care anymore. Maybe she should have grabbed the girl who helped her and threatened to break her neck if no one set her free.

But... Ty Lee has firmly decided that fate does want something from these painful events. And she will give the Universe a chance before she tries to make her own destiny.

As the hot water pounds onto Ty Lee's body, she is suddenly struck with the strong, floral, pungent scent of the perfume that clearly has not yet left her skin. She fumbles around and finds a porous stone, purely volcanic, and starts scrubbing at her arm with it.

This home is beautiful and luxurious; it makes Ty Lee angry.

She always lamented that Azula was either a forgotten, rotting, decaying corpse or hiding in caves, slipping from bed to bed in order to just scrape by, if she were still alive. But here she is, back from the dead, _having never been dead_, living in a beautiful mansion in Republic City with expensive perfume and a heated shower.

Ty Lee is unsure if she angry about the fact that Azula is, yet again, not seeing any consequences for her actions, as she said, or if she is angry that Azula is alive and did not _tell her_.

Tell her? What reason would Azula have to contact Ty Lee after their last meeting. Their last meeting that still wakes Ty Lee up, her body shaking and drenched in ice cold sweat. She could not stop thinking about the image in front of her, the _woman _in front of her that had fallen so far. _Her eyes_. _What did they do to her eyes?_

Now, she supposes she is Azula's prisoner, but that will not last for long. Ty Lee _refuses _to let it last, because she has never been this angry in her life. Of all of the people in Azula's life, of all of the people who used her or wanted something from her, Ty Lee only ever wanted her to be happy.

And she just gets repaid by Azula spitting in her face.

Ty Lee will not stand for this. Not for a second.

_Then why are you standing for it? Why are you in her shower? _asks a voice in Ty Lee's head that she quickly silences.

In time, Ty Lee knows. In time, this will work out.

* * *

_**Presently**_, Ty Lee looks up from the bountiful breakfast before her to see someone walking into the dining room. She realizes her vision is not completely recovered when she has to squint at the blurry, feminine figure. At first she presumes that is Azula, but her assumption is wrong; it is the young woman from the club. Saiko, Ty Lee recalls her name was.

"The Dragon Master will see you now," Saiko says coldly, eyeing Ty Lee with the same intense disdain that Meng Kui, the bouncer and every single other Agni Kai Triad bastard Ty Lee interacted with last night did.

"What? The what?" Ty Lee sincerely hopes she is not about to be dropped into some pit of dragons, not that she has even seen a household dragon before that could be put into a pit. However, Azula has a shockingly competent organization of illegally rich dicks, and probably could get a pit of dragons if she _really _wanted one. Ty Lee quickly decides that the person who tries to make her fight a dragon is going to be that dragon's breakfast.

"The Former Princess Azula," Saiko corrects reluctantly, her expression souring even further.

Ty Lee purses her lips, glaring at the indignant and impeccably groomed young woman. Ty Lee stands up, stumbles and then catches herself with the palm of her hand. The sensation of supporting her body with a single palm awakens some vague memory within her.

A memory of the sensation of power, and the pain of powerlessness. And the realization that she is perfectly equipped to deal with being a captive of the Agni Kai Triad, because Ty Lee has faced far more menacing foes.

"Take me to her," Ty Lee orders with a deep breath. Her voice sounded firm and regal in her head, but her lethargic tongue and fuzzy mind make her words slurred as if she is drunk.

"Right," Saiko replies crisply, as if speaking to some sort of disgusting thrall. Ty Lee makes mental note to take her down first when she makes her bold and heroic escape from the wicked clutches of the Agni Kai Triad.

Ty Lee is led like a mongoose dragon on a leash through the mansion. It is ornate, and makes Ty Lee sick. So the benders and the rich people who moved to Republic City to continue their lavish colony lifestyle with no repercussions live like this, and Ty Lee, the nonbenders, and the _real _Fire Nation refugees live the way she has been.

It makes Azula's comments about filth and rats less of Azula's usually snarky jabs and far more offensive and superior.

_But what should I expect from Azula at this point?_ Ty Lee thinks weakly as she is ushered through the final door. _She did drug me, lock me in a room..._

"I would like us left alone," Azula purrs pleasantly, as if Ty Lee has just dropped by for tea and gossip.

Perhaps her sweet tone is calculated; maybe Azula actually thinks playing nice is going to fool Ty Lee. And, as if Azula has not provoked Ty Lee's bitter rage enough already, Ty Lee thinks the girl on her lap is a very pointed move. Playing with she and Ty Lee's relationship built on decades of little moments like it is a petty Pai Sho Game. Ty Lee finds herself only more and more enraged.

If she had all of her faculties, she would have chi-blocked everyone in this room by now. Yet, despite her forced weakness, she will not cave in to whatever Azula wants from her. Ty Lee _refuses _to accept that, even for a second.

The cronies around Azula, and the young woman on her lap, leave without questioning the order. They underestimate Ty Lee; they have no idea what she could do to all of them if she were not still reeling from a laced drink.

"Dragon Master? Are you kidding me?" is the first thing Ty Lee says. Azula looks at her after that with a small smirk.

"I don't make the names," Azula says casually before hesitating. She squints and her eyes drift up towards the ceiling before she seems to consider her words and decide against them. "Well, actually I do. I like it much better than 'princess' or the more popular 'crazy princess'."

Ty Lee has no response to that. Her temples are throbbing, her head is pounding and she cannot believe she has gotten herself into this situation in the first place.

"Let me go," Ty Lee sighs. "I don't have the energy to fight or play your games or anything. This is literally the worst night of my entire life and I want to go home. It's not like I have anyone to tell."

"Yes. Yes, you do. The _reason _I drugged you instead of asking you on a date was because my brother showed up at your bar hours after I left. You told him about me and called him here to collect me! I mean, the bounty is enough to buy yourself a private island and never have to see that hideous excuse for a bar ever again!" Azula exclaims fiercely, no longer remotely smug and collected.

Ty Lee stares for a moment in weary disbelief. "Do you know how far the Fire Nation is from Republic City?"

"No, and if that's a riddle, I'm no mood for ─"

"You do know that Zuko was more than a few hours away. Even if I did turn you in for the bounty, wouldn't it have taken a while for the news to reach him, and then maybe a week for him to set his affairs in order, and then another two weeks to actually get here...?"

Azula's lips part in surprise. She genuinely did not consider that in her blind rage about Ty Lee presumably turning her in. "I... You were a liability regardless."

The princess struggles to regain her composure, or retain any of her dignity. She is very glad she had her underlings leave the room as she is left staring, confused, at Ty Lee.

"I'm tired," Ty Lee declares, confidently striding across the room and taking a seat across from Azula. No longer is Ty Lee at the disadvantage. "So, are we going to come to some kind of arrangement?"

Azula scratches under her eye, her fingers trembling. Ty Lee, even with her headache and blurred vision, can see that the 'Dragon Master Azula' is a mask that a crumbling woman is hiding behind. Due to that, Ty Lee finds herself torn between regret, compassion and the will to help her, and the frustration, hatred and lack of desire to get dragged in and under by Azula once more.

"I can't let you go now," Azula says assuredly, inhaling sharply and snapping up to sit straight. She _does _still have the _power_. She _does_. "There is no way I would ever trust you enough to let you go, with my brother in the city, especially now that you're so inexplicably angry."

"_Inexplicably_?" Ty Lee exclaims, her voice shockingly loud. She fights the urge to look at her hands and gauge her ability to fight. "I have been _more than reasonable_! I didn't call the police after you burst into my bar and started ordering me around ─ "

"But you _complained _the entire time," snaps Azula, pouting like an indignant toddler.

"Then I helped you hide a body! And _then_, yes _then_, when I go to talk to you after hiding what happened from my best friend and the Fire Lord himself, you drug me!" Ty Lee shrieks, tearing at her hair. Her fingers are still loose and cannot grasp her chestnut locks, _but _she is getting stronger by the second.

"I am sure you understand that I had no choice," Azula says and Ty Lee _does _believe her.

"I understand that you thought you had no choice."

Silence. At last, Azula says, "Let's play nice now. I acted out of suspicion─"

"Completely unfounded paranoia."

"It is not _unfounded paranoia_. It is completely _valid _suspicion of everyone around me! You're only calling it paranoia because it's _your fault_!" Azula shouts, her cheeks flushed, her fingers now more prominently trembling.

Ty Lee groans and puts her head between her knees. "Are you actually still angry about something that happened almost a _decade_ ago?"

Azula hesitates. "No, of course not. I have moved on to bigger and much better things than I ever dreamed of."

"Right, drugs, human trafficking, gambling, prostitution rings, fraud, robberies, coercion of innocent shopkeepers and calling yourself _Dragon Master Azula _is a much more divine and dignified calling than _princess_. Or an advisor. Zuko would've ─ "

Azula stands up with the force of a lightning bolt, her heart pounding with vibrant and sudden rage.

"No. Not accepting my brother's table scraps is a _divine and dignified _calling. _Leading _people is my calling, and taking care of the people I was _born to protect _and preside over is a _divine and dignified _calling. I'm not playing mob boss, or trying to feel _big_. I am trying to put to use the only skills I was ever given, to do something worth remembering me for," Azula says eloquently, her legs now shaking beneath her from the force of her voice.

Ty Lee is silent as she stares at the floor. She thinks she is doing the right thing, Ty Lee hopes, but of Ty Lee's worst qualities, always thinking the best in people is by far her worst.

"Azula, I'm not your pet, and you can't control me. I've protected you so far and I don't intend to turn you over to Zuko. But I don't want to get involved," Ty Lee says clearly, standing up. Neither woman moves to fight, although both of them think that perhaps they should.

"So what now?" Azula asks.

"Now I'm leaving, and if you have a single _shred _of humanity in you, you'll let me walk through that door and we never have to see each other again. Because the drugs have worn off, and if you don't, I will be forced to fight my way out, and I like my odds." Ty Lee sounds so self-assured and smart, which makes Azula vaguely angry and nauseated.

"You will never be free of me," Azula says calmly and Ty Lee shakes her head.

"I don't know." Ty Lee shrugs. "But I think the past seven years have treated us pretty well."

Azula is utterly silent.

Ty Lee looks away as she continues, "Our lives are clearly much better without each other. Goodbye, Dragon Master Azula."

There is no response.

Ty Lee did not expect one.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

* * *

Azula wakes screaming out the name on her lips, and clawing at the shadows above her. She does not know where she is, at first, and her body is damp with sweat as her hand keeps reaching, but her screaming slows to a stop.

She dreamt that she was buried alive in a tight box, locked in it, sealed to be forgotten. And the face that had put her in there, paralyzed and helpless, was the last face Azula saw before she began to feel the dirt piling on top of her.

Ty Lee's face. But she is alone, and certainly not being buried alive. She is just in her bedroom, which is somehow more impersonal than the one of her childhood. The house was not hers originally, of course, nor did she have the money to buy it. She had nothing to her name but the clothes on her back when she first came to Republic City.

She would have done absolutely anything to escape her brother, and _that _was possible, even if escaping her own head was not. Ultimately, when a person has talent, or is renowned, or is just able to charm their way through impossible situations, they are rewarded by people who are easily blinded by glitter.

The house is not hers. It belongs to the person who tried to help her off of her feet, and a person who she was rid of afterwards. No regrets, of course; Azula just knew that she could not trust one who seemed so selfless. The only people Azula will work with are people who have a very clear and defined _need _or _motivation _that lets her trust them for as long as they need or want it.

Because Azula does not need to be some hero. Not like some people.

She walks down the stairs of her very lonely mansion and descends on the empty kitchen. Yesterday, Ty Lee was here. Yesterday, Azula had a captive that she did not know what to do with, and a captive that she _released_ like an idiot.

But Azula has no intention of pursuing her. She likes to imagine that Ty Lee will not say anything to Zuko, or do anything particularly serious about it.

Azula makes her own tea and finds her own newspaper and looks at the shadowy halls and tries not to think about how this reminds her so much of her childhood after Zuko left, save for the nameless, faceless servants who did things for her. Azula has come so far but gone so many steps back as well.

Or maybe she just never moved.

_"It's one step forward, two steps back."_

Doctor. Also nameless and faceless to Azula. She does not think she has a poor memory, just a lack of desire to know anything about other people if they do not particularly interest her.

She looks at the Republic City news and the first thing she sees is that her brother is holding some kind of affair for the anniversary of the city or something else boring like that, with the Avatar and other assorted hangers on that Azula has never liked.

Although she tries to resist, she does flip to the page about the story, because she is... feeling nostalgic. Not weak ─ even perfectly happy, successful people can be nostalgic, can't they? Azula hides her shocked expression despite being alone when she sees that this is not an untouched document.

She gets up, knocking over her teacup with her hand and spilling it all over the table. Azula yanks the paper out of the path of tea water destruction and runs to the door, wondering what she has missed. Something must be wrong. Someone must be out there. It is too early for them to have made such a tidy escape.

_Why does everyone always want to kill me? _she thinks as her heart pounds and she tightens her bathrobe around herself.

Slowly, she steps onto the patio, maneuvering the overgrown garden and shadows of large trees, trying to find at least a trace of an intruder. The gates around her home are illegally high, if she were not the kind of person who has always been above the law in one way or another. Her locks are perfect, the plants are growing out of control for a _reason_...

_It has to be someone she knows_. Someone she knows who set up the ambush with the Red Monsoon Triad. Someone she knows who is a traitor in her perfectly kept organization. Someone she knows who is going to murder her brother.

_Or is it an assassination? Yes, well... perhaps it would be an assassination if it is for political reasons. Murder is not the right word. No, no..._

Azula clears her head, reeling her thoughts back in along with her breath. She has dealt with worse things and more formidable foes than someone spying on her.

_What if no one is spying on me? What if I'm just going totally insane?_

No. Azula clears her head again and goes to check the locks. All of them. There are over thirty, which is completely justifiable when you are the founder of a triad, and a person who has made enemies and sells drugs and slaves and steals for... fun, at this point, presumably.

Everything is intact. She shivers, and not just from the brisk morning, and returns inside, locking every lock in there as well, and then deciding to further study the markings.

She refuses to ask anyone.

She does not trust them.

[X]

Ty Lee is two hours late to the brunch Zuko and Mai invited her to. In her defense, she has been numb and out of it from whatever Azula sedated her with for the entirety of yesterday and through the night, and this morning could barely get out of bed.

They are waiting at this cute little place Ty Lee never went to, because she had no one to go with, and doubted she was the type they liked here. Ty Lee tries to love Republic City, but it often does not love her back. All the same, it is her current calling.

Mai and Zuko are talking quietly, and looking rather scary in the corner. Ty Lee's head hurts from the sunlight pouring through the window. She should have killed Azula. No, no, Ty Lee does not like that thought. She could not kill Azula, and she would not want to kill Azula.

"Hey," Ty Lee says weakly and Mai stares at her. Quickly, Ty Lee averts her eyes, hoping that Mai cannot see how much she is hiding. Not that being kidnapped by the Agni Kai Triad for over twelve hours is something you can just see in people's eyes.

"You look on drugs," Mai remarks and Ty Lee laughs too hard and for too long, until she just clears her throat and fumbles with the menu.

Her eyes cannot focus properly on the characters; they dance and move and are blurry. She has to hold out the menu in front of her and squint. Mai and Zuko exchange a concerned glance.

"Are you okay?" Zuko asks as Mai is at a loss for words.

"Yup, yup, just tired," Ty Lee says weakly as she swallows.

"You smell like roses," Mai remarks as if Ty Lee smelled of rotting meat. "And fire-lilies, maybe lavender. Definitely lavender. Akai Tsuki Perfume."

Zuko is confused by Ty Lee's concerned, agape expression. "Is that…? Is that important? Also, how did you do that? Are you part shirshu?"

"I'm not part shirshu. It's a rare scent. Because, Akai Tsuki doesn't have roses in it, unless requested."

"What is happening?" Zuko asks loudly.

"Maybe I requested Akai Tsuki perfume with roses in it, Mai. I don't see why that matters, and I don't understand why you feel the need to flaunt the world's most useless super power." Silence. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I've just had a long night."

"We can tell," Zuko says kindly as Mai leans back in her chair and seems deep in thought. "Are you sure you're up for the Anniversary Party?"

Ty Lee rubs her face. "Yeah. I think I just need food, and lots of water."

Another glance between Zuko and Mai, but they do not question Ty Lee any further.

Even though Mai finds it very odd that Ty Lee would go through the monumental trouble to wear Azula's perfume.

[X]

The party is truly stunning. Of course it will draw attention, and a good deal of that attention will be negative. Azula watches from the opposite rooftop, realizing how long it has been since she has actually _done _something like this. It is exhilarating, but she also knows that she is out of practice.

Out of practice enough to have nearly bled to death after a single fight with the Red Monsoons. She also happens to be very uncertain as to _why _she is attempting to prevent her brother's death, and risking being caught in doing so.

But she tries not to think about that as she continues to observe, dressed in black and cloaked in shadow. Someone, or something, is going to make a move. Either against Zuko or herself, and Azula is going to be ready for it.

She remains intensely focused, even though her head is reeling with anxiety.

[X]

There is nothing, no sign of trouble. Azula begins to think that perhaps she is the target, until she is plunged into utter chaos of what breaks out. Of course. Of course this would happen, and Azula finds herself diving down from the balcony she was perched on, into the chaos of sudden swords, but… no bending. Azula grabs the arm of one of the assailants, fighting him and pinning a burning hand to his side to roll up his sleeve.

The mark of a nonbending gang from the Dragonflat Boroughs. The Black Dragons. Azula grabs his sword from him, slits his throat and moves quickly through the panicked, screaming crowd. She cannot bend, not with Zuko and his friends somewhere here. It is much, much too noticeable.

Thankfully, no one notices her among the fight that is breaking out. People are either panicked politicians, or seasoned veterans of war, and it would probably be entertaining if Azula were not slashing her way through the crowd trying to find whoever left her the note in her paper.

She can feel liquid heat on her face and neck. Blood. Azula never was a bloody fighter; her bending and lightning are clean and quick, albeit the stench of burning flesh is unpleasant. Usually, when Azula has blood on her skin, it is her own.

The room behind her has just been interrupted by the crash of rock, which leads Azula to believe that the secondary guest of honor has begun laying waste to crowds and is trying to restore order.

So perfect that they strike when the Avatar is not present. Just Zuko, his wife, the new councilmembers being elected today, and Toph Beifong.

Azula bursts through a door when she hears a strangled scream, and then the wet heat is her own blood, and she blacks out.

[X]

"Wake up. Wake up…" is echoing above Azula as someone snaps her fingers in her face.

Azula's ears are ringing, and the world is fuzzy. Dust and ash floats around her in motes illuminated by the early sunlight. She cannot have been unconscious all night. She cannot have lost track of who she is pursuing.

Then Azula is hit by the gripping fear that she might have fallen for a trap. That it might be him. That it might be, "Ty Lee?" Azula breathes in relief. She almost thought she was going to be looking up at someone less dangerous but more likely to torture her to death.

"I just saved your life. And, if we're handing out accolades, I stopped Zuko from seeing you. Look, I know you're a bit out of practice, but did you think that just bursting through the door waving around a sword was going to do you much good?" Ty Lee is laughing, laughing as if none of that just happened.

Azula sits up slowly, her back making her whimper in pain. They are on the roof, and Ty Lee is perched like a bird, comfortable up here. The air is her element, Azula has thought many times, despite the Avatar being the last airbender.

"Why did you help me?" Azula asks softly and Ty Lee shrugs.

"It made sense. Maybe you can pay me back by giving me fewer encounters with Agni Kai Triad goons?" Ty Lee suggests and Azula sighs.

"They aren't goons. They're people I'm helping," Azula says fiercely, and she is _not _lying. The triad is what she is meant to do.

The triad is why… why Ty Lee was right two nights ago.

They were better off without each other.

"Don't get up so fast," Ty Lee says, holding out a hand. Azula hesitantly obliges. "They're still clearing out and investigating the whole place. How about we watch the sunrise, and _I _provide the refreshments. Not sedated ones, maybe. If you're willing to take the risk."

Azula looks at her, looks at the rising sun, wonders what happened between her head being smashed and waking up here, and decides that she does not care for a while. Ty Lee hands her smuggled drinks, and Azula shakes her head and looks out at the many parts of the city that are still under construction.

"We are even, I think," Azula says coldly as she examines her drink.

"How romantic," Ty Lee says, snickering.

"I'm simply pointing out a─"

Kiss. Ty Lee kisses her on the lips and it feels right. There is a warmth that floods Azula from it, one that she has not bothered chasing, with any of her partners.

It is a kiss that makes Azula regret that she will probably never be able to see Ty Lee again.

* * *

It has been a year since the attempt on Zuko's life, and an investigation that led to more questions than answers for Azula. In the cold, particularly typical year of 107 AG, a number of things have changed, but most things are the same. It is impossible to be powerful without being lonely, and it is impossible to not notice the little patterns that show up.

Meanwhile, Ty Lee waits, wondering if she will run into Azula again. Perhaps it is for the best if she does not, given the heightened activities of the Agni Kai Triad. But she has to admit her stomach twists when she thinks about that one breathless moment when they shared their first kiss in _years_.

That kiss, in Ty Lee's mind, was easily a decade in the making. But she has other things to worry about than her intriguing two weeks as a captive of the bloodthirsty Agni Kai Triad.

She has decided to sell her bar, but first she needs to manage to make it less… _serial killer lair _looking. And, it was through that, that Ty Lee found herself closing the place that was making her bored, stressed, grim and bankrupt, and waitressing at another bar a few boroughs away.

The bar is not a particularly savory place, not that _anywhere _is particularly savory in Republic City. She is _charming_, however, and is a woman with a very well weaponized sexuality. However, the bar tends to host many other women with well weaponized sexualities, seeing as it also happens to be in a district of Republic City most known for sex work.

Which Ty Lee has absolutely zero interest in doing.

It is near the end of 107 AG when Ty Lee is offered a job that she cannot help but take. However, it is somewhat unnerving to her. She finds many things sketchy in Republic City, but her renovations have just been set back a few months by her hiring an idiot contractor who broke one of the walls in half, and now she is having to coordinate a bunch of bullshit with city developers and legal types, which would have just been waved away in the Fire Nation.

The job offer is waitressing at an exclusive boutique club. It is vague, but the offer is tempting. Ty Lee dresses both for an interview and a fist fight when she gazes forlornly at her broken wall, and the peeling paint, and rolls her eyes before talking the long walk through the rainy city.

_Dusk_. It is called. _Dusk_. And it is a stunning reddish building with a similar line of hopeful clientele as to what she saw at Smoke and Mirrors a year ago. Oh, so help her, Ty Lee is not taking a drink from anyone for as long as she lives.

"I'm here about this," Ty Lee says to the tattooed woman at the door. The acrobat holds up the invitation she received, and, wordlessly, the bouncer nods her head and gestures for Ty Lee to walk in.

Another beautiful place that reminds Ty Lee of how she was so smitten with the beautiful venues in Republic City that she decided to impulse buy one and ruin her life. The fire fountains are gorgeous, the dance floor illuminated and the crowd all looking gloriously happy.

Ty Lee walks to the bar. "Hi." Nothing. "Hi!" Nothing. "I am here for this stupid job!"

_Ugh_. That's probably not how she will get hired.

And then Ty Lee's eyes flash. "You're that Saiko girl."

"Yes," she says and Ty Lee's heart starts pounding.

She glances around for escape, and starts to back away.

Saiko interrupts, "Yes, I am. But no one is trying to kill you. Go upstairs to the right."

Ty Lee does not believe her, but her gut is begging her to go investigate. While that impulse should probably be ignored, Ty Lee walks up the stairs anyway.

She realizes what she was hoping for when she sees that her hopes are dashed, and feels the disappointment settling in her stomach.

Not Azula. Some other woman.

"Hello," the woman says, extending a cold hand. Ty Lee shakes it and sees the Agni Kai Triad tattoo on her wrist, and also the tacky assortment of rings on her every finger. "I'm here to interview you for the position. We've just opened this boutique club, and it is in desperate need of trust staff."

"Is this a crime front?" Ty Lee sighs.

"No. It's a legitimate business venture of the Agni Kai Triad," the woman says crisply and Ty Lee rolls her eyes.

"That has to be some kind of oxymoron," Ty Lee murmurs, not sitting down in the chair that the woman gestures at. "I am very uninterested."

"You clearly are aware of the Agni Kai Triad affiliation, and, therefore, added onto the very high salary, will be many favors you can ask. I've heard you're struggling to get your bar sold and move on. That can happen."

Ty Lee sighs loudly, because she _wants _this, but she also is not an idiot who plays around with the triads. She sees people getting murdered over protection money or bad deals all the time, and Ty Lee may not be the brightest candle in the bunch, but she is not dumb.

"Why is it so important for me to waitress here?" Ty Lee asks, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Our guest list is selective, and therefore, our staff must be as well. I know nothing about you, although you are a reasonable looker. I just know that you are on the list of people I am to reach out to, and that list is very short and very exclusive."

Ty Lee groans. "I'll try it."

[X]

The job is surprisingly fun, Ty Lee has to admit. She does like the people she meets, except for Saiko, whom she thinks she will always hate. The clothes they give her are wonderful, and the gifts from the customers are even better.

Ty Lee worked in the gross strip club for a while, and she saw girls who weren't just interested in handing out drinks being invited to sit down and talk. It was never in Ty Lee's interest there, but here, she meets fascinating people from all over the world.

Her favorite is this wonderful woman named Amaransu, who is an art collector. Well, probably an art _thief_, but she makes for good conversation and has offered Ty Lee free lessons multiple times.

Ty Lee is now walking into her second private lesson at Amaransu's Republic City apartment. The first one was in the park, and Ty Lee imagined Amaransu did not trust her enough to let her into her home. So, Ty Lee must admit she is excited. And she must admit she is hoping that she and Amaransu do more than just paint.

Regardless, Ty Lee finds the apartment breathtaking in every single way. There are gorgeous ink paintings, sculptures, and stunning relics from all four nations. Even pieces of frescos from the Air Temples.

But Ty Lee's eyes hook for the longest on a drawing that is very out of place. It is street art, from the Fire Nation. When Ty Lee sees it, her nostrils fill with the scent of seawater and fire flakes, and she can hear the laughter of two girls she will never hear laugh like that again.

It is not one of the caricatures of Ty Lee and her friends. It is of some unknown woman, but Ty Lee does remember, with slight pain.

"Ty Lee," says the warm voice of the much older woman, "I am so glad you arrived. Did the doorman give you any trouble?"

"No. I just walked right in," Ty Lee says with a wide smile. "Your house is like a museum."

"I'm aware. I have to be blunt with you quickly, my dear. I have a very interested buyer here who has stayed a bit long, and I'm sure it will be no trouble for you to join us briefly before I can get to teaching you," Amaransu says as she gently touches Ty Lee's back. Ty Lee loves the warmth and electricity she feels from the touch, and then her stomach twists with regret.

Ty Lee walks in, prepared to meet someone interesting, but then she is stunned. Amaransu looks at her, confused.

"Azula?" Ty Lee asks weakly.

"Why are you here?" the princess asks and Ty Lee thinks she had forgotten her voice.

Amaransu quickly interjects, "I'm giving her some lessons, but of course our meeting has run long. You two have met?"

"Once, a very long time ago," Azula says coolly as Ty Lee walks to sit down in the beautiful living room. "We went to school together, actually."

"Ty Lee, you never told me how educated you were."

"Yes, she doesn't seem like the smart type, does she?" Azula says sharply and Ty Lee clenches her jaw. "Here's my deal. I will gladly pay twice what I've offered, if I also get a lesson from you."

"I would love that," Amaransu says excitedly, her eyes coasting over Ty Lee's concerned expression.

The lesson is not as bad as it could have been. Ty Lee sees a certain light in Azula's eyes that used to be vacant, but she also seems to be hiding something, and her neck is bruised. But Ty Lee tries to pay it no mind and maintain the conversation shared between the three women.

Afterwards, Ty Lee steps outside, her arms weighed down by the equipment a rather tipsy Amaransu handed her. Azula stands, alone, the snow falling in her hair. Ty Lee has never seen her in winter before, or at least this kind of winter.

"You look kind of sick," Ty Lee says as she walks to Azula. "Do you want someone to walk you home?"

"I have no more need for that."

"What did you buy from her?" Ty Lee asks curiously.

"Nothing of importance. Décor." Azula still does not look at Ty Lee. "Alright, I bought a variety of art pieces stolen from my family. Have this jewelry box. It's apparently one of my relatives' but I have no idea whose."

Ty Lee takes it, looking at the archaic Fire Nation design, and feeling its smooth weight in her hand.

"You sure you don't want me to walk with you? This city sucks. I might not be there to save you from bleeding out a second time."

"We all go somehow. I'd rather die bleeding out in a street than in an asylum."

And she walks away before Ty Lee can say another word.

[X]

It is 110 AG and Ty Lee has decided to become an artist with the copious support of Amaransu and her influence. Once she got the money from the club to clean up and pay everything off, Ty Lee sold the dive bar and now does performance art in them, although she is quite good at traditional arts as well. It feels like a calling, of sorts. Better than the last few.

She is currently living in an immensely beautiful hotel that was built for dignitaries, with a gorgeous view of Air Temple Island and the ocean. Ty Lee, tonight, is doing a project in which she intends to sit in silence with any stranger who desires, and then paint their aura for them.

The invitations and posters all read, _"A mirror that sees your perfections, and not your imperfections."_

People come and go, and none of them leave the impression on Ty Lee that she thought they would. There is a very interested crowd of onlookers from various nations and cities and walks of life, and Ty Lee watches their faces, and paints different colors for everyone.

She is very intently focused on washing the brush as she waits for the next person, but most are now occupied with the dinner being served. Someone does sit down, and Ty Lee looks up, and barely stops herself from knocking over the water.

Silence. Ty Lee has to keep her silence, to make her aura painting, to not show anyone the sudden emotion. Her point of this show was to be a mirror, and not a person. And the woman sitting across from her clearly knows that.

Ty Lee then realizes what she is being paid to do, and so she does. She does paint it, even though her fingers are shaking.

Silently, Azula takes the finished product, and is gone, before Ty Lee can even say a word.

And Ty Lee wonders if she imagined it. Maybe she did. This kind of thing doesn't just _happen_. Or maybe she came for a reason. Or maybe Ty Lee should get up and walk after her, but, someone else is in front of her now, and she cleans the brush of the deep blue.

Azula does not show the emotion she had inside of her as she walks out through the back, guided by people who fear her and her influence. Like everyone. She has not looked at the paper that she crumpled in her hand.

She is not sure if she _wants _to. She just knows that she saw, by chance, the poster on the wall of a teashop. _"A mirror that sees your perfections, and not your imperfections."_

There was no name attached, or Azula would not have gone. It was in a hotel where Azula could be recognized by an ambassador, but she decided to scope out said mirror, because having her perfections instead of her imperfections seen was tempting on a base, adolescent level.

Then she saw the girl with the long, braided hair, and a stunning pink dress, dressed up to the nines.

And Azula could no longer resist.

She does unroll the painting, after locking her gates and doors and sitting with the shadows from the moonlight falling on her face.

It is stationary, with the handwritten, _"You are perfect in your imperfections," _on it.

Azula has heard and never believed those words, as they were told to her by just one person.

She glances only briefly at the aura painting before shoving it in a drawer and covering it with unused silver utensils.

[X]

It is 113 AG and Ty Lee is working behind the jewelry counter, and not shopping in front. She used to be someone very different from who she is now, but she is very tired, very tired and very desperate to leave this city.

Her boss walks out of the back room when some skinny Fire Nation girl walks in. Ty Lee only realizes the weapon strapped to her back when she sees how nervous the shop-owner is.

Ty Lee keeps her head down, having no desire to get involved in a robbery. She does not get paid _nearly _enough for this.

"... fire is so very difficult to control..."

And then Ty Lee sighs. She may as well do a good deed or two before she dies.

"Leave now," Ty Lee orders and the girl's eyebrows shoot up. Ty Lee glances at her wrist; Agni Kai Triad. Of course. Azula targets teenagers. "Leave now, because we're not giving you whatever you want."

The girl laughs, and Ty Lee's boss looks nervous, saying, "It's just protection money. We're in their territory."

Ty Lee rolls her eyes.

"How about you give _me _that protection money so I can get a train ride _out of this city_? How much did you pay for that sword? You haven't even touched the hilt for more than two minutes, have you? Your tattoo doesn't even have its first mark yet, so I really suggest you go back to getting Fire Scout Badges instead of the mark of a murderer branded on your skin."

The teenager can only open and close her mouth. It is clearly her first assignment, and she sadly does not seem to have any back-up.

"You can't..." she manages to stammer out but Ty Lee just shakes her head.

"I can. I am exempt from protection money or other swindles, threats muggings and other dealings by executive order of Princess, well, _Dragon Master_, she seems keen on, Azula. I forgive you, because I haven't exactly told anyone I'm working here. It's pretty embarrassing," Ty Lee says lightly and her boss looks concerned too.

The Agni Kai Triad girl looks scared and confused before leaving.

[X]

Ty Lee is walking home after work at the jewelry shop, even though she finds it alarmingly difficult. She hates how things can go downhill so quickly. She hates how life is so agonizingly unpredictable, and she hates how her life is running out in front of her eyes.

When she gets to her apartment, which is still the beautiful one from her days as a celebrated artist, there is someone waiting inside.

"Why did you disappear on me for a year?" Azula asks sweetly, crossing her legs. "I mean, I was quite startled. I thought you must have left the city."

Ty Lee swallows. "I wish. But it isn't like you call too often. Maybe you could, uh, send me a Solstice Card."

Azula sighs.

"Why were you working in that tacky place? It might as well be slave labor in that borough."

"I am not required to tell you anything about my life. You may think you know me, given the shameless spying you seem so keen on, but you don't."

Silence. Ty Lee starts unpacking her purse and turning on the lights. Azula is sitting there, like the wife awaiting her cheating spouse. She would look frightening if she did not look like an oasis in a desert. But the thing about oases, deserts and those dying of thirst, is that they tend to be illusions or fantasies. Which is exactly what Azula is.

"Why do you want to leave?" Azula asks quietly.

"Well, in order to leave a place, I need to have my life sufficiently threatened first. Nervous habit I developed when someone decided to light a safety net under my head and free animals."

"That was almost twenty years ago."

"Or, oh, maybe burst into my shop bleeding half to death, then make me hide a body."

"No one has found that body yet."

"That is so far beside the point."

"Maybe I could bribe you into telling me how you disappeared."

Ty Lee again hesitates. "I'm dying."

"You're joking."

"Don't act like it would matter. You let me believe that you were dead for over ten years, Azula. I watched them burn an empty pyre."

"So you were at my funeral? I never got to ask. That's something people wonder about." Silence. Azula regrets her pleasant conversation when she sees Ty Lee's serious, and weary expression. "Really… are you dying?"

"Yes. Yes, a man with glasses and really fake sympathetic expression told me that I'm terminally ill. And I'm in this city, stuck, with literally nothing and no family, no friends anymore. I want to go back to the Fire Nation." Ty Lee has tears in her eyes, and they are not the glimmering ones Azula saw at the art display. They are those of someone who has nearly given up.

Azula is actually speechless. But at last, she says, "I wish you were lying."

"Well, I'm not. There were significantly more people at your funeral than there will be at mine, and honestly, that's just depressing. You want to help me? Get me a ticket out of here, to the Fire Nation," Ty Lee says as she walks into the living room, where Azula is frozen like a statue.

"What are you sick with? Does anyone know? I..." Azula attempts to uphold her stoicism, but cannot manage. She feels like she has just had her nose broken by a sucker punch.

"It doesn't matter," Ty Lee says before sitting down across from her old friend. Thirteen years, it has been thirteen years since the Boiling Rock, but it feels like it has been a thousand.

Azula is not sure what to say. She can only think of the image burned in her retinas for years. Ty Lee as a performance artist, looking more beautiful than ever. Ty Lee gladly sharing a single intimate moment with countless people, but Azula did not want to curse her out as a slut or destroy the glow of her eyes.

They started, for that minute, and Ty Lee's eyes sparkled with tears, but not of anguish or melodrama.

"How much do you need to get back to the Fire Nation?" Azula asks softly, not knowing what else to do.

"A few hundred gold pieces. But I'm not taking a gift from you. It'll have more strings attached than a puppet show," Ty Lee says sharply, although her voice cracks with emotion.

"It isn't a gift. My brother has paid reparations, hasn't he? Consider it a very overdue reparation for your time spent in the Boiling Rock," Azula says defiantly and Ty Lee has to admit she would like to see Azula do something kind before she dies.

"There's a train to the port that I can take tomorrow morning," Ty Lee says, somewhat wary of Azula's gesture. "However, there _is _one thing I have to do before I leave."

"Don't push your luck," Azula purrs, but the tears in her eyes belie her feigned disinterest.

"I want to kiss you again," Ty Lee says gently, advancing on the princess without restraint.

Azula is unsure what to do until Ty Lee's lips press against hers. They try to make it last a lifetime, but Azula bites down and sucks, and Ty Lee presses her hips tightly against her ex-lover's. There is a long forgotten fire that is struck anew, if only for a little way.

They are together that night, and both feel as if struck by lightning.

"What's your plan?" Azula feels the need to ask.

"That's your problem," Ty Lee says softly. "You always have a plan. Or ten. I think I've always known, even before I was sick, that maybe today is all we have left. And I think I've earned the right to live before we die."

Azula is silent for a moment, staring at the shadowy ceiling.

"But if you had any plans, what would they be?"

"We could," Ty Lee whispers after a brief but comfortable silence, "run away and go somewhere else, go anywhere else. And let the history books forget about us. You said if Zuko became Fire Lord, we would elope and live somewhere strange."

Azula just lies there, hating how _good _that silly dream sounds. She is naked and here in the blue night with the one person she would have traded most things to be able to sleep with.

"And then what?" Azula asks in a teasing tone.

"And I was thinking a house by a lake."

"In the mountains. I always wanted to live in the mountains if I weren't in royal chambers or my mansion here. I want to watch the sunrise every day," Azula says and she laughs at how much she likes the absurd idea.

"Alright, a cabin in the mountains with a good view of the sunrise. It would be a pretty good place to raise a family," Ty Lee remarks and Azula has a vivid image in her mind of her own screaming. She shivers. She remembers the cold night in 110 AG when she was screaming and feeling it ripping out of her and the way she has never forgotten the sound of the wailing that accompanied her pain.

_"Take it away."_

"Okay, I want two cats and three kids," Ty Lee says playfully and Azula thinks her teasing has more than a kernel of truth. "Girls."

"Boys," Azula argues, knowing that this will never happen. They might as well enjoy each other.

"Two girls and one boy," Ty Lee says firmly and Azula just shakes her head.

"We'll see," Azula says softly before wondering if she should kiss Ty Lee's forehead. She _wants _to kiss Ty Lee's forehead, but she knows better. "So long as you carry them all. I mean, you must be quite fertile with your family."

Ty Lee bursts out laughing. "I guess. Yeah, I can't imagine you pregnant."

Azula feels slightly weak at that, and wonders if Ty Lee noticed the marks as they were so passionately fucking. She probably did not.

"I can't either. It's just a parasite that grows up to hate you." Azula shrugs and Ty Lee laughs again.

"That is a ridiculous fantasy for another day," Azula says quickly, not wanting to think about that suggestion. And then she thinks, for a moment, to go with Ty Lee back to the Fire Nation, and build another life, than the one that feels more and more hollow with every passing day.

Azula looks at Ty Lee, and thinks about how their paths crossing felt liked destiny, but Azula swallows those feelings and finds her clothes.

"You'll have tickets by the time you reach the station. I hope it works out for you," Azula's says coldly, her voice utterly inhuman.

"You... You too," Ty Lee whispers, momentarily in disbelief.

After wordlessly getting dressed, Ty Lee glancing at the marks on her abdomen that were not there before, Azula goes home, to her humongous empty house, and to the life of secrets that no one can know.

She sits in the looming shadows, and wonders where she is supposed to go from here.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** _Fanfiction seems to think I have updated this but all I did was delete the chapters I've already rewritten. So now I guess I'm posting my rewrites ahead of schedule.  
_

* * *

**Chapter Five**

* * *

Azula remains sitting in the shadows of her home, not knowing what she is supposed to do.

She can still feel the afterglow of sex within her, but it is bittersweet. Azula knows what it was. It was spontaneous and ridiculous, and it was a final goodbye. Because Azula strongly doubts that any random event of fate could push them together again.

It seemed, although Azula said not a word about it, that the Universe was fighting for she and Ty Lee to be together. But to be honest, her pursuing of Ty Lee was never as calculated as everything else Azula has done. It was simply fun, _very _fun for her. She chased Ty Lee but had no idea what she would do if she caught her. That was so juvenile, so absurd. But Azula just knew how desperately she wanted Ty Lee, despite everything she has built for herself in Republic City.

Azula could have anything she asked for since she was born, but she only wants what she can't get.

The willing love of others. Ty Lee, father, mother, mother, mother...

"Dragon Master," says a voice and Azula nearly falls onto her face.

"What did I say about sneaking up on me? You're going to get yourself killed, Meng Kui."

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to say that Saiko got the ticket and should be at the station by now." Meng Kui walks in front of Azla and bows sharply.

She expects the princess to turn on a light, but she seems exceptionally distracted. Azula does not even notice that she is in shadows right now.

"How did you get in?" Azula asks, her eyes flickering wide. Meng Kui frowns for a split second. Yes, Dragon Master Azula's paranoia is justified, but it would be nice to be trusted.

_Death Over Betrayal_, says one of the mottos. And Meng Kui has certainly seen it in action before.

"The door was unlocked, so I presumed you were waiting for news..." Meng Kui sincerely hopes she is not going to be on the wrong end of a bolt of lightning.

"Of course. And she's going to be guarded the entire way?" Azula says smoothly, although she knows that Ty Lee is more than capable of taking care of herself.

She _has _defeated Azula, after all. Even if the former princess does not want to think about that for even a second.

"Yes," Meng Kui says before daring to sit in front of the Dragon Master.

Meng Kui has known Azula since she first began the organization. But, to be honest, Meng Kui knows absolutely nothing about her. Azula knows Meng Kui's deepest secrets, and Meng Kui knows Dragon Master Azula's name.

"What is it?" Azula inquires, rubbing her sore jaw. That afterglow is all but gone now.

"Permission to speak freely?" Meng Kui asks quietly, her cheeks flushed with anxiety.

Azula looks at her and nods silently.

Meng Kui very softly says, "I think you should follow that girl."

"That is absurd," Azula says, rolling her eyes. "I have absolutely no intentions of ever even seeing Ty Lee again."

Meng Kui looks very unconvinced and Azula hates her for it. "I don't mean to, but, you, you once said that only those who play win."

"That had absolutely nothing to do with this," Azula insists, pointedly rolling her eyes.

"You said that only people who are willing to risk everything for something that doesn't yet exist are the ones history remembers. Everyone else gets forgotten," Meng Kui repeats from memory, remembering the look in Azula's eyes when she said it. Sparkling, that charismatic woman who had a fire in her that would make people follow her to the ends of the Earth without asking why.

"That was in reference to why I did almost the opposite of hiding. It was my explanation for starting the Agni Kai Triad despite the bounty on my head," Azula says fiercely, but she cannot pretend that she does not understand what Meng Kui is saying.

"Well, the Triad is about as powerful as any country at this point. You don't have to follow her, of course, but that's just my unwarranted advice." Meng Kui stands up and curtly bows again, leaving Azula sore and uncertain in the shadows.

Alone. Very alone.

She has a very sudden and unwelcome memory of at last taking her throne.

But she had never imagined that achieving her dreams would be so _lonely_.

_"The world isn't enough for you," _chastising words of Zuko.

Maybe the world isn't enough, if there isn't anybody to rule beside you.

No, no, no. That is a _crazy _thought and Azula just needs to go back to bed.

[X]

Ty Lee has no idea how she is supposed to have tickets by the time she reaches the station, and she looks around at the very crowded platforms. It is newly implemented, a luxury that once only existed in Ba Sing Se or parts of the Fire Nation. She felt horrible after packing, realizing she only had enough belongings to fill a single rather stretchy bag.

It feels odd. Before she became a Kyoshi Warrior, she thought that material things brought happiness. Everything metaphysical dies; things last forever. But items break too, and nothing on this planet is built to last.

She wrings her hands, her bag pressing into her shoulder and causing significant pain as she walks up to the ticket booth and hopes that Azula managed to figure this out for her. The leader of the Agni Kai Triad likely has the ability to make anything she wants to happen.

Because, of course, Azula facing repercussions for her actions or not having everything handed to her on a gilded platter would be absurd. _How _that girl does it is utterly baffling to her old flame.

_Old flame_. Not much of an old flame anymore, Ty Lee realizes with her pulse speeding up. She slept with her last night. Ty Lee slept with Azula last night. The realization didn't exist until she was forced to stand in line and be alone with her thoughts. How could she be dumb enough to do that?

Probably because she is dying. That wasn't exactly on her bucket list, but she has become much more spontaneous now that she no longer cares much about mistakes.

Maybe this is how she is supposed to find her grand romance. By way of her lack of any inhibitions anymore. It is... difficult, to know ahead of time. It is definitely painful. Ty Lee will probably never forget managing to drag herself to a doctor to check a headache and sore bones, and wind up with a death sentence.

At last, the queue moves forward enough that Ty Lee is able to glance around and look for whomever Azula sent. It does not take long to find the one very out of place person, by the name of Saiko. Ty Lee climbs over the dirty, frayed ropes and walks to see her.

Saiko silently hands her the ticket.

"Enjoy your ride," she says and before Ty Lee can ask a single question, Saiko disappears.

Ty Lee walks to the train, gnawing her lip to bits. It feels very odd to be traveling on the silver piece of the Agni Kai Triad, and it does concern her. She probably didn't leave Azula at her absolute best, but it isn't as if there is any time to make up for that now.

She finds her way onto the train and pulls a book out of her bag. It is some Fire Nation thing that Amaransu gave Ty Lee; it's a classic book from the pre-war period. She opens it and holds it towards the sun, opening it and reading.

It is a story about the first warring houses in the Fire Nation.

_In the beginning, the dragons were free, and among the humans, hate was a myth, and war was not even conceivable. And, due to this, the Fire Nation built up from the grass and volcanic rock, into a beautiful and bountiful..._

Boring. Ty Lee's eyes ache already. She can, however, see why this book was banned in the Fire Nation after the war began. Amaransu told her that it is one of the greatest love stories ever told, about the Dragon Queen of the ruling house, and the only person who could tame her.

But Ty Lee continues flipping and just finds endless talk about the houses and all their children, with names Ty Lee cannot follow. She gets frustrated and flips to the end.

And then she stops and closes it before she looks to see if it ended well for the lovers. Ty Lee does not know if she wants to know the end. It is a complicated feeling that has come with accepting the fact that she is ill and it is nothing she can fix.

She doesn't think there will be a happy ending, and she doesn't think she wants to fantasize about it in stupid books that are a waste of time to read anyway. Ty Lee shoves it back into her bag and decides to try to take a nap in the sunlight instead.

Ty Lee drifts off to sleep, and it is very pleasant.

[X]

When Ty Lee wakes, she is nearing the pier where she will take a ship to the Fire Nation. It is a nice passenger one, and her tickets have secured her a wonderful place. However, the passage is definitely ill-gotten.

Ty Lee narrows her eyes as she sees people six steps behind and three to the left and right of her. That is just _sloppy _trailing, Ty Lee thinks before realizing she sounds like a lunatic, assuming she is being spied on. But... that would _exactly _be something that Azula would do.

She watches them for some time, at one point getting so distracted that she smashes into a pole. An older woman helps her up and Ty Lee smiles warmly at her with a light thank you. And then, as quickly as she can, she manages to get through the line, and dig through her bag that contains her entire life and withdraw her passport and legal papers.

At last, at long, long last Ty Lee is going home. She tried so hard not to think of the Fire Nation as home. To not get very excited whenever there was news about them, or she saw something in a shop that she used to get as a kid.

But Ty Lee cannot keep kidding herself, now that she knows how fragile and short a life truly is. The Fire Nation _is _home, and while Ty Lee has no clue where she is going to stay there, or how she is going to mend all of the relationships she broke off, but she feels at ease once she finds her rather nice room and tosses her bag onto the bed, before promptly tossing herself onto the bed.

There are two, one across the room, but Ty Lee has no problem either being perfectly silent or getting to know a nice stranger. She was _absolutely definitely _such a great cellmate in prison that she made lifelong friends. Oh, perhaps she should leave her prison history out when talking to a stranger.

She remembers one day sitting on a bench in the very gross part of the Dragon Flat Burroughs, and a quite burly and intimidating man with his eyes fixated on the ground in front of him sat beside her. Ty Lee had no problem with it, even though the one other person waiting crossed the street.

Ty Lee did, however, find it very awkward. She was waiting for her date in the park, while he was probably waiting for a drug deal. The silence got too uncomfortable, and then he shifted his arm.

_"Oh, did you get that tattoo in the Boiling Rock? It's really well done!"_ she asked eagerly and he looked at her, completely baffled. _"I almost got one too, but I didn't."_

He continued to stare and Ty Lee just stared back, blinking like an excited puppy.

_"You were in the Boiling Rock?" _he asked slowly, unable to conceive of this young woman in pink summer clothes possibly being imprisoned in the Boiling Rock.

_"Yup. But only for around two months."_

_"That's a short sentence. What were you in for?"_

_"Treason."_

_"Oh. You some kind of journalist or something?"_

_"No... I kind of tried to kill a member of the royal family. Well, I mean, I didn't actually aim to _kill _her, but... It was along those lines." _She was grinning as she spoke and he looked at her and swallowed, his mouth unnaturally dry.

_"You, huh," _he did not know what else to say to her, except he kept gawking at her until she left.

Ty Lee has her eyes closed and is already trying to rest when the compartment opens. She tries to remain calm and quiet, so as not to completely freak out the person she will be sharing a room with for some time.

The person sets down a suitcase and Ty Lee can hear the light creak of the other bed. Despite her efforts, Ty Lee's curiosity gets the best of her, and she opens her eyes and looks up.

_No_. No, this cannot possibly be right.

"Azula?" Ty Lee hisses, not wanting to scream but feeling panic flooding her.

All Azula does is set her finger to her lips, and murmur, "Shhh."

Ty Lee mouths several silent obscenities, definitely not wanting to get caught like _this_. If someone found her with Azula here, Ty Lee might as well jump overboard and swim to a deserted island. _Seriously_.

"What are you doing here?" Ty Lee at last whispers as the shuffling around in the steel corridors stops. "_What _are you doing here?"

Azula pauses and leans back on her bed, her hands clasped and resting beneath her navel. A navel that Ty Lee has a very distinct memory of putting her lips on several times last night.

"A reprisal of last night?" Azula suggests with a mocking sparkle in her gilded eyes.

Ty Lee groans and tugs at the blankets until she manages to make herself comfortable. "Goodnight, Azula."

Well, the princess has to admit that this went better than she imagined it could have. Azula has no idea what she is doing, and there is something somewhat exhilarating about that fact. Even when she had totally lost her mind, she had plans. Constant plans and plots, all detailed.

Azula used to spend more time planning what she would do than actually doing it. That included any and all pretend games with Mai and Ty Lee. Azula thinks she might have bored them to tears but _she was the one with the imagination, after all_. There was a reason other than her being princess that led to Azula being in charge of their games.

And games that became a bit edgier, between Azula and Ty Lee. When they would be in bed, and now Azula starts to quite distinctly remember how disturbing it was to play prisoner once they hit twelve and hormones kicked in.

Maybe Azula always wanted her, since before she could fathom what wanting her was. They knew little about sex, but Azula now remembers something very, very sexual about that game. She did not, surprisingly, grow up to have a bondage kink.

"Are you going to come into my bed because it's cold or you're scared? Like when we came back from Ba Sing Se?" Azula purrs, rolling over to face Ty Lee. The ship has been moving for all of five minutes and Azula is already asking Ty Lee to jump in bed with her.

"Shut up. I can't believe you followed me. What are you gonna do when you get to the Fire Nation, huh? Do ya think anyone in Caldera is going to believe your fake papers for half a second?" Ty Lee demands and Azula smirks.

"That's what I'm banking on," the princess murmurs and it gives Ty Lee chills.

Perhaps Azula _does _have _some _plans.

[X]

Azula is awake already when Ty Lee is up. She is moving through firebending forms without actually bending and Ty Lee looks up silently to get a very interesting view.

"Don't not wear a bra with a sheer white slip," Ty Lee mutters and she is surprised Azula does not jump, as she did before she became overly paranoid. Ty Lee hypothesizes that Azula was always so locked in her own head and thoughts that she sometimes lost her astuteness.

"Oh, you don't like it?" Azula says as she ceases the fluid and inherently sexual movements of her perfect body.

"No. Possibly. _No_," Ty Lee responds before rolling over and attempting to go back to sleep.

"They do offer breakfast here, you know? We have to go early before the old people get all of the good stuff," Azula remarks and when Ty Lee looks up again, she is actually naked. "What is it? You asked me to get dressed. Should I put up a modesty shroud around my bunk?"

"I can't do this in the morning," Ty Lee moans and Azula stops smirking as soon as she is dressed and she looks at how exhausted her old flame is.

"You love mornings. Sometimes you would wake up earlier than me, like when birds sing in the dead of the night in summer," Azula says with a small wistful smile that she erases as soon as Ty Lee is looking. "Or do you just hate the world?"

"I don't hate anything or anybody. But I don't handle mornings too well anymore," Ty Lee says uncomfortably, hating how she has to mention her disease. She does not want Azula to think about it, because Ty Lee is already certain that the reason Azula is here instead of in her dream life in Republic City is because Ty Lee told her that her illness was terminal.

"Well, then I suppose I will be forced to get us breakfast," Azula says with as much disdain as she can manage. She is gone and Ty Lee smiles into her pillow.

Azula thinks she hides the fact that she is a _person _so well. It's hilarious.

Ty Lee sits up when she is gone and does the stretches that the doctor recommended. _That _she is pretty good at. Actually figuring out how to even get properly examined was impossible. Ty Lee honestly needed to go to the Fire Nation.

The man who told her she was running out of time, also told her that she could possibly maintain herself and, if very, very luck, wind up in periods of remission. But only if she had doctors who specialized in it and had access to rare herbs.

There were exactly none of those in Republic City. But Caldera? Oh, yes.

Ty Lee dresses and contemplates going to find Azula several times. She then decides on it, formulating the excuse that she is just making sure that Azula isn't sneaking off or doing anything underhanded.

But, there the princess is, examining quite disgusting tea and then pouring sugar into it. She gets looks of anger from everyone else, but she does not care, nor does she even notice. Ty Lee chuckles to herself about that.

Ty Lee taps her back, and this time she jumps. Thankfully, Ty Lee tosses her other hand out and grabs the steaming cup of tea before it breaks all over Azula's feet.

"Don't sneak up on people," Azula hisses and Ty Lee somehow manages to maneuver the two of them away from the people who looked like they were having murderous fantasies about Azula.

"You are so horrible, and entitled. Ugh. The entitlement," Ty Lee complains, hating how she is smiling, hating how she is so glad to see Azula again.

She wonders if maybe glimpses and shared moments can bring forgiveness.

"So, seeing as we have a piece of... toast, and an... orange peel, and... is that a cinnamon roll?"

"Yes," Azula says coldly. "And those are exactly what I intended to get for us."

"What were planning on doing with the orange peel?"

"Something far above your paygrade," Azula replies and Ty Lee starts smiling more and promptly wanting to punch herself.

"I get the cinnamon roll, since it's you who got us kicked out of the breakfast bar," Ty Lee says, snatching it as Azula looks at her very overcooked toast.

"We call that being 86d in the Agni Kai Triad bars," Azula says, and Ty Lee sees a strange look. She saw it once or twice, when Azula discussed her plans for Ba Sing Se, or reveled in her excitement before the Invasion. But those eyes were pained as well as alight.

_Happy_. That is what Azula looks like when she is _happy_. And Ty Lee does not know what to make of it.

They finish their far-less-than satisfying breakfasts and walk out onto the deck of the ship. The relief is wonderful.

"Do you think I'd get arrested if I started bending lightning?" Azula asks with a smirk.

"Probably. Speaking of that, you're going to get arrested in five minutes. And, maybe you're planning on killing everyone in sight, but..." Ty Lee frowns and shrugs as they walk closer to the bow.

"That is for me to know, and for you to find out," Azula says fiercely and Ty Lee looks her up and down.

Azula looks out at the open sea, and then to the sun. It somehow reminds her of her greatest failure, and she wonders if her uncle feels that way. Suddenly, Azula wonders what happened to her father. And then she starts thinking about how Mai had married Zuko, and Azula recalls that she has a baby niece, that she does not know the name of.

"Can I tell you something?" Azula asks and Ty Lee nods a bit too eagerly. "I've been trying to avoid calling the Fire Nation my home for a long time. The Agni Kai Triad was my home, and I will... I hope to return."

"But it actually is our home no matter how much we try to lie to ourselves?" Ty Lee asks, grinning and Azula just shakes her head.

"It's really pretty here," Azula says slowly, startled by the open seas. "I never really looked. I was always too busy with the task at hand. Or in my own head. It didn't matter much what the ocean and sky looked like when I was focused on gaining an empire."

"Well, you can definitely fuck up and stop to admire the sky now."

"I could've after I became Fire Lord."

"No. Because the world is not enough for Princess Azula," Ty Lee declares and Azula's expression falls at her words. "If there was nothing left on Earth to claim, you would find a way to go up there and conquer all of the stars, and then the sun and moon. And that still wouldn't be enough, would it? It's pretty nice seeing that you found a goal that isn't world domination."

"Just domination of Republic City," Azula purrs, a smile creeping onto her lips that Ty Lee shared.

"Do you think that there was something fighting for us to be together? And for this to happen? I... I've gone in and out about believing in fate and miracles, but right now I'm starting to think that maybe things happen for a reason," Ty Lee says quietly. "And you and I running into each other over and over for years, in a place as big as Republic City..."

Azula shrugs. "That sounds like something fighting to make our lives more difficult."

Ty Lee turns to let the wind billow through her hair, ignoring the sting of salt in her eyes.

"Maybe." Ty Lee shrugs. "So, if you had the world and all of the stars and the sun and the moon and the Spirit World too, what would you ever need or want?"

Azula is silent as she looks out at the water as well.

"That is for me to know, and you to find out."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

* * *

"Hush," Azula whispers and Ty Lee leans back into the shadows. "If we are going to take their fortress for our own you can't keep breathing so loudly."

Ty Lee rolls her eyes, but does become very conscious of her breath. She kneels with Azula in the deep shadows as the ship guards make their rounds and check for stowaways and any other rising issues. They do not, however, notice the two very well trained soldiers who are _much_, _much _too old to be playing pretend hiding halfway in the ventilation ducts, waiting to pounce like jumping spider-frogs.

"We should make our move," Ty Lee whispers excitedly and Azula nods in assent as they swing up and silently move past the guard rooms and quietly, Ty Lee's shoulders shaking with silent giggles, find their way into their target.

It is obscenely enjoyable to pretend to be conquering a fortress like they did when they were about seven. Which is about twenty years ago, Ty Lee briefly laments. But before she can truly think about how old they have gotten, and how much time they have lost, Azula has already wrapped her into the game even further, as Azula is apt to do.

Ty Lee thinks she might be falling in love with her, which is horrible. Falling in love with anybody while dying is _terrible_. Falling in love with Azula in general is _awful_. Combined is probably the stupidest thing Ty Lee has ever done, but nothing could make her care right now.

"It will not be conquered unless you climb up and mark the highest tower with the Fire Nation flag," Azula says regally, her arms crossed, and Ty Lee is not sure if she is playing or not. Either way, it is endearing.

Azula produces a flag she nicked from the wall of the storage room, and hands it to Ty Lee. At that, she seems to expect Ty Lee to start climbing.

Which, honestly, Azula absolutely could do herself, and Ty Lee has no desire to do.

"I'm not climbing those crates for you," Ty Lee states sternly and Azula shrugs.

"You can't climb that. I'm disappointed," Azula says airily before making that face that Ty Lee is used to.

The face when she realizes that Ty Lee is dying, and then she is apologetic.

"How did you like it when everybody looked at you when you had totally gone crazy? Like you were some fragile little thing, and they spoke in gentle little voices and pitied that poor mad, mad girl?" Ty Lee asks without any hesitation.

Azula does not think she has been spoken to in that way in a very, very long time.

"I wanted to murder all of them," Azula states calmly, a bitter taste invading her mouth. The reason she never bothered returning to the Fire Nation; in Republic City she was powerful again. She was not permanently tainted with the reputation of that broken girl.

"Right. That is exactly how I feel when people look at me once they know that I'm dying," Ty Lee says, adding a glare of emphasis, and Azula shrugs again.

"Fair enough. So climb the crates for me and bring your queen her glory." Silence. "What? You don't want me to treat you differently from anyone else. Well, that's how I treat everyone else."

Ty Lee just laughs. And laughs. And then Azula is laughing and they both do not think about how odd it is.

"Should I call you Dragon Master?" Ty Lee asks as she starts clambering up the rickety crates with the ease of a tiger-monkey. "How did you even come up with that? What does it mean?"

"I thought it sounded intimidating and exciting." Azula is so honest, and Azula does not think she has been honest with someone in a thousand years.

There is something about being immensely formidable and powerful, when everyone bends to your will. It is pleasurable for a time, but it can be marvelous to talk to someone who doesn't see you as Dragon Master Azula. Someone completely not afraid to tease you, or call you out or take control in bed.

Ty Lee snorts and Azula tries to stop thinking about how happy she is right now. "It doesn't even mean anything?"

"Does it have to? I don't see you starting an organized crime empire." Azula cocks an eyebrow and Ty Lee slowly shakes her head.

"Alright, what do your friends call you?" Ty Lee asks as she stops to take a brief breather. Her chest heaves as she clings to the wobbly crates, but she is fixated on Azula.

Azula hesitates when asked that. "I don't have any of those."

"That's ridiculous. You had all those weirdos in the clubs. Saiko, the bitch, and Meng Kui and whatever." Ty Lee rolls her eyes and finds another foothold.

"They weren't my friends. They were just people I ordered to do things for me but I sometimes did friend type things with."

"Sounds like Azula's idea of friends." Ty Lee chuckles to herself, but does not like Azula not laughing with her. It gives her pause, and she nearly falls.

"No," Azula says. "You two were the only friends I ever had. Everybody else is just a substitute."

"Well now I feel like a jerk." Ty Lee stops again and shakes the pain out of her hands one by one. She wants to treat this casually, but there are probably some things she and Azula _do _need to talk about.

"I know. That's why I said it." Azula now laughs and Ty Lee tries to feel relieved.

"So is it true?" Ty Lee calls down.

"Yes! So, you should absolutely feel like a jerk." Azula smirks, and perhaps it is not as bad as Ty Lee thought.

"If it helps, I've become some kind of creepy recluse," Ty Lee says as she at last reaches the top and wriggles, tugs and at last pulls the Fire Nation flag out of her bra. It is slightly damp with her sweat, but she could not care less about that right now. "I've actually just been burning Mai and Suki and Zuko and everybody's letters before I read them."

"Why? You like friends." Azula is genuinely stunned by that.

"I don't know. I've had a weird few years, okay?" Ty Lee isn't exactly certain how she is supposed to do this.

"I've noticed," Azula says smugly and Ty Lee scowls down at her before hanging the flag over a protruding nail.

Ty Lee clambers down wordlessly, glancing around and hoping that they will not get caught. She abruptly realizes that this is the most fun she has had in what feels like centuries.

And it was with Azula, of all people. Ty Lee suddenly dreads the moment that this ship ride will be over. Then they will have to be themselves again. If Ty Lee could make this journey last forever, she would. And, little does she know, Azula feels the same.

"So, what do we do with our fortress now that we've conquered it?" Ty Lee eagerly inquire and Azula smirks faintly. "You must have had a plan, princess."

And Azula examines Ty Lee for a moment. "Alright, now that we have our own fortress, we absolutely do not have to be disturbed. And no one will ever have to know about us, or _us_, for that matter. It will get boring, but since we have each other, there is only one thing I can think of to pass the time we'll spend in our fortress."

Ty Lee cocks an eyebrow, and Azula grabs her by the waist without a second thought.

And so, there they are, on a ship straight to the Fire Nation, to Ty Lee's doctors that will give her an expiration date, to Azula's arrest, making out on top of crates of assorted imports, after playing a ridiculous pretend game.

It is the best thing Ty Lee has done in what might have been an eternity.

[X]

As they walk casually back to their cabin, "I can't believe we didn't get caught," Ty Lee remarks, still giggling, her cheeks still very flushed.

"Of course we didn't. It was _my _idea, after all," Azula says smugly and Ty Lee thinks that there might be a very changed person underneath this facade named Princess Azula. A person Ty Lee likes, but a person that Ty Lee is inherently suspicious of.

While they were in that storage room, the rest of the world did not exist. But out here, Ty Lee does realize that she needs to be wary of Azula and her lies.

All the same, Ty Lee realizes that getting breakfast and having sex is really not going to give them what they need. Closure. This is supposed to be closure, regardless of whatever madness Azula has planned once they reach the Fire Nation.

And so, as they lie awake in silence, Ty Lee rolls onto her side, "So, you could just up and leave Republic City?"

Ty Lee cannot help but worry about Azula's intentions, and... she wants to know a few things before it's too late. Or just hear Azula talk, in the dark, like some kind of belated slumber party.

"It didn't need me as much as this journey did," Azula says calmly and Ty Lee bites the inside of her cheek. Not very helpful answer.

"And this journey...?" Ty Lee adjusts her position in the rather uncomfortable bunk, as Azula remains perfectly still and silent.

"You want to know the truth?" Azula sighs, begrudgingly speaking. They are, albeit, in the dark and it is much easier for Azula to be open.

"Yes," Ty Lee says softly, cracking her knuckle as she once easily did and feeling a surge of overwhelming pain. Her body is slowly breaking down, and she... she feels strangely about it.

"My journey is stopping hiding from my life," Azula says with a small laugh. "Alright, what do I most hate?"

"Surprises."

"Well, yes, but what else?"

"Betrayal."

"_Ugh_. What else?"

"Not being in control at all times?"

"Oh Agni you are so stupid," Azula snaps, despite Ty Lee having a very fair point. "I hate wasting time. I never did in Republic City, or in the Fire Nation. It's immensely frustrating to me to have a second not used to further my interests. A full second wasted."

Ty Lee swallows, knowing where this is going. "You didn't waste any time, though."

"I suppose not. I built a life with the Agni Kai Triad, but it could walk on its own without me long ago. I've been hiding, and that moment in your apartment made me realize that I eventually have to do the honorable thing. I have a niece I've never met, a lot of unsaid things and unfinished business. It needed to happen." Azula does not want to say any more.

"And because I'm running out, you realize that you'll run out too," Ty Lee says, having seen it in others before.

Azula rubs her hands together, not _believing _she just said those words aloud.

"Yes. And no." Azula says no more now, knowing it is already too much.

One day, perhaps, she will say that she cannot waste the time that Ty Lee has left. Azula has dreamt about her, casually pursued her, as if she was this eternal object. Ty Lee is not immortal. It really isn't all that much for Azula to _ask for_, Ty Lee living forever.

"I'll see you in the morning, okay?" Ty Lee is asking, not telling.

"Yes." Azula needs to be noncommittal.

[X]

Azula dreams about the screaming and wailing again, haunted. She hates her nightmares, and she suddenly realizes that the sun is rising, and they are arriving at Caldera. Princess Azula makes herself look her best as she occasionally glances at the peacefully sleeping Ty Lee.

If she is going down, she is going to look extremely hot while doing it.

Ty Lee wakes once Azula has already packed her bags and they are passing the Gates of Azulon.

"I packed for you," Azula says calmly to her possible girlfriend, and Ty Lee just squints. "And laid out clothes for you. You will find them tasteful."

While Ty Lee does not like being told what to think or feel, she rises anyway and makes use of what Azula has done for her. She looks at the princess, or Dragon Master, or maybe just little girl who liked to play queen of the fortress, and has the impulse to shove her under something and tell her not to do this suicidal act.

But Ty Lee just touches her waist. Azula turns around, looking utterly unafraid to face the music. And Ty Lee kisses her, as forcefully and passionately as she can. Because, yes, yes, yes they wasted so much time but Ty Lee will not let this moment be wasted.

Azula silently appreciates that, as she walks off of the ship and into the familiar air. Neither she nor Ty Lee have seen, smelled or felt their home city in a very long time. The buildings are all unfamiliar, but the pier has the same scent, and the street peddlers are not the same people, but play similar songs.

The water is still deplorably polluted, even after the war. Ty Lee clutches her papers in her sweaty hands as she tries to think of something to do about Azula. She will _not _let this happen. No, she just can't. Azula followed Ty Lee for some insane, reckless, romantic reason and now Azula is going to be screwed over.

Maybe these dock workers are Agni Kai Triad members, and that is why Azula is calm. Oh, please, please let that be the truth, Ty Lee begs silently. She prays to every spirit, even ones she never believed in before, but it is all futile in the end.

Ty Lee shows her papers and passes before standing amongst the crowd and watching, waiting for Azula to just pass by casually and cackle at how scared Ty Lee looked. Bt Azula's eyes just drift up and lock with the officers.

They don't recognize her. Ty Lee could not be more thrilled that they don't recognize her.

"Yes, miss, do you need something?" the officer in charge asks. "Did you lose your papers?"

Ty Lee wants to scream the answers for her. Azula looks like a sweet, lost, flawless Fire Nation girl, and she should use that to her advantage.

"Actually, I am a war criminal and am surrendering myself to Fire Lord Zuko."

Ty Lee wishes Azula was close enough to be punched in the face.

"Wh-what?" the officer asks, staring at the sweet girl who reminds him of his daughter, and trying to think of her as a _war criminal_. That is not possible.

"So, are you just going to let me walk into the city? Is that the state of National Security at this point?" snarls Azula and Ty Lee rubs her temples, one of her migraines starting again. "Honestly, if my brother is that soft I might as well just march right past you morons and go put him out of his misery."

The officer's sudden, horrified realization can be felt even by most of the people rushing by to meet family members, reservations or appointments.

"I'm not trained for ─"

"For the love of Agni, I am surrendering myself to you. How are you not trained for that?" Azula looks him up and down. "Do I have to do something violent to get arrested now?"

He is agape, and Ty Lee is about to faint.

Azula sighs. "Well, alright, but let it be known that you pushed me to this point." She gives him a moment to stop her before she glances up at a decorative slab of warship at the edge of the pier, held by strong but dated chains.

It takes a split second for the chaos of the sudden blue light and heat, and then the crashing of chains slapping down here and there, Azula not really caring if they hit anyone or not, and then the huge chunk of metal taking off half of a dock when it plunges into the water.

"Am I able to be arrested now, gentlemen?"

[X]

Zuko thinks he might be in some weird dream when the news of chaos at the pier comes to him. He _knew it_. He knew she would reappear at the most inconvenient time possible. She couldn't stay away that long, no matter what she was doing.

And she has a smirk on her face when she is led by nervous men into the throne room.

Five years can change a lot. She looks more like an adult, but maybe he just saw her as young for a prolonged amount of time.

"I am surrendering. I really didn't want to destroy the docks but the sheer incompetence of your national security forced my hand," Azula purrs confidently. Zuko may have forgotten many things about her, but not her voice, not that _face _of smug superiority.

"You didn't, uh, want to sneak here? You did manage to escape the palace."

"I figured if I just walked right in it might be alarming."

"Right. So, you've been making a living as a magician, I imagine?"

"Close but not quite. I've been working as an investigator of missing persons. I'm sure we have some catching up to do and you need a little time to take down the _lost pet; she answers to 'your worship' and has gold eyes _signs, but I think we have to deal with the negotiation of my surrender into your custody."

Zuko swallows, knowing he should say that he will not negotiate _anything _with her. But he does know playing along with her game will get him somewhere. He cannot figure out why she ever came home. She was like trying to catch smoke with his bare hands for so long, but she walks right into his throne room in handcuffs and asks to come home again.

She always has a reason to want to be found, and Zuko would be a fool to not take advantage of whatever brought her here.

And Azula certainly knows that.

"I'll speak to you after imprisoning you for at least tonight," Zuko offers and Azula inhales and exhales. "I'm obviously not playing your game until I've figured out the rules."

"Good luck. It's a little too complicated for you. I think you should settle for tag… or hide-and-seek."

"I hate you," Zuko says without meaning to. He looks around, uncertain how he, a fucking grown man, just quietly snapped that at a fucking grown woman.

She smirks.

Everyone else pretends not to notice.

And so, Azula finds herself locked up in what is much nicer prison than it used to be. The sparse furniture even looks _comfortable_.

She sits across from Zuko, the bars casting shadows on her face as he looks at her.

"Why are you here?" Zuko inquires and Azula thinks briefly about her answer.

"I have something missing in my life, and it is here," Azula says with her hands clasped on her lap.

"And what would that be?" Zuko stare at the living dead girl skeptically.

"I founded the Agni Kai Triad," Azula says quite openly and Zuko's eyes flash. He does not know what to make of that, or if it could possibly be true. "I'm worth much, much more than your estranged psycho little sister. I founded and ran the Agni Kai Triad since one year after I left you."

Zuko opens and closes his mouth, stunned by that fact. He _does _believe her, even if she always lies.

"And after I built such an impressive empire that can run itself, I had to pursue the one thing I had not yet conquered," Azula says earnestly, looking directly into Zuko's eyes. It clearly makes him uncomfortable, and she enjoys that. "A family of my own."

Zuko laughs so hard at that that he nearly falls out of his chair. "That is ─ I believe the Agni Kai Triad, even though I'm going to check sources ─ but there is _no way _you would leave a criminal empire to _start a family_. I mean, even if you want that, you could do it there. Tell me the truth."

"I am pursuing a girl. She has to come to Caldera, and I decided that I eventually would have to face you. Hiding forever does not suit me," Azula says in an eerily calm and cold tone.

"You want me to..." Zuko hesitates. "Did you just turn yourself in to the Fire Nation after years of struggle and not one, not two, but three disappearing acts in order to get a girl to go out with you – oh Agni it's Ty Lee isn't it?"

"No."

"Oh, come on. It is. She's the only thing that could compel you to come back here."

"She's the thing that compelled me to _leave_."

"There are easier ways to break up with someone than breaking house arrest, disappearing and founding the Agni Kai Triad. Be honest."

"She's dying." For the first time, Azula shows emotion. And she clearly does not mean to, because she swiftly tries to hide it.

Zuko does not know what to say.

Ty Lee is sweet, funny, a _kind _person, and somehow the Universe thinks it is fair to give her a death sentence. Zuko wishes Azula were lying, but he can tell in his heart of hearts that it is true.

"I'm sorry," is the only thing he can manage to say.

Azula wordlessly shrugs. "I want her cared for, and I want to be with her. That is all. Once upon a time I would demand much more, but I want for nothing due to me years of being the most important person in the dark side of Republic City. If you do not meet my demands, or I am ever unsatisfied, do not think for a second that I have no one in the homeland who is loyal to my triad. I will escape, and return to Republic City."

Zuko believes _that_. But people do change, people change, and Zuko can imagine that all of those years alone, all of those years of running or wanting to run, would hollow out even Azula.

"I have a lot of thinking to do," Zuko says and Azula withholds her snarky response.

Before he leaves, she purrs, "To let you know, the customs official just asked me if I lost my papers and refused to arrest me when I said I was a surrendering war criminal. Perhaps you should look into that. Who knows who's running around our nation." Azula now reclines silently. "Go check on if I'm telling the truth about the Triad, or whatever you please. But help that girl get cured or you will regret the day you were born."

Fire Lord Zuko looks at his predicament one last time before leaving her.

[X]

Ty Lee storms into the prison, terrifying the guards who try to stop and search her. It took her _forever _to figure out what nonsense Azula got herself into, and she is raging by the time she reaches the prison.

She winds up throwing her purse at the face of one of them and snapping, "Search _this_!" like a madwoman, as she fumbles around to find the cell they told her about when she managed to calm down enough to check in.

Azula is quite calmly sitting in the surprisingly nice accommodations when Ty Lee bursts inside. She looks a good deal like a feral cat, and Azula laughs at it, only enraging Ty Lee more.

"Do you know how long it took for me to track you down?" Ty Lee shrieks shrilly, sounding like a cute little mouse being poked by a needle. "Azula, you _idiot_! Why would you ever turn yourself over to Zuko! You ─ you ─ _ugh_!"

Princess Azula remains icy and motionless and Ty Lee stops screaming because it is so odd.

"Maybe I've at last lost it," Azula purrs and Ty Lee's lower jaw juts out before she can respond.

"No. You have not. Why would you do this? How long are you in here? Is he going to have you killed or your bending taken away?" Ty Lee stammers out every word, her head splitting with an intensified version of the normal headaches that come with her disease.

"I told you on the ship," Azula insists.

"_No_. You weren't honest." Ty Lee has deep conviction, and Azula knows, _knows _that she is wasting valuable time if she does not explain her evil plan.

"I did this because I had to come up with something after following you on the spur of the moment. I figured my best chance of survival was turning myself in. I will be here for the night, and then Zuko intends to let me return to the palace under conditions that aren't that bad. No, I won't have my bending taken away. My triad, mansion and freedom, _yes_. But I could lose worse things," Azula says with a cavalier attitude that makes Ty Lee so angry that Azula is _lucky _to be behind those bars.

"What could be worse to lose? Alright, your criminal empire was horrible, but that was who you were. And I hate how much this feels like my fault!" Ty Lee screeches and Azula smirks at how this is, of course, all about Ty Lee.

Azula almost likes her delightful histrionic personality.

"Well, losing my throne, losing my mind, losing my freedom… and I lost all of those at one point. Losing my bending, losing my life, losing..." Azula hesitates, but she will have to admit it _eventually _if she wants the plan she formulated on the ship to go right. And every time she lets the words stick in her throat, she wastes a million year. "Losing you, okay?"

"What?" Ty Lee nearly rips her braid from her head. She was not expecting that response.

"Yes, losing you. I mean, what use is conquering the world if you don't have someone to rule it beside you?" Azula says with a slight smirk, but it falters with brief emotion. Ty Lee hates her and loves her and has no idea what to think about it. "I have gained a lot of odd dreams I never knew I had. The Triad, and all that came with it. And, obviously, since this is very clearly absurd to both of us, I never knew I wanted you enough to do this."

"Because I'm dying." Ty Lee shakes her head and scoffs. "You're no different from anyone else.

Azula is a childhood fantasy that Ty Lee indulged for a little too long.

"Because we're both dying. Because even though I have spent my entire life making sure that my legacy will _never _die, I still will. My feats will live on, my glory and failure and all in between. No one will forget my name. I have made my mark on the Earth. I can afford to run off with the girl and… disappear."

"As usual." Ty Lee crosses her arms.

Azula looks way, not wanting to be pleading. But that aversion makes Ty Lee fairly certain that she is being lied to. Ty Lee squints, and rubs her neck, and has so much trouble believing this. Azula does not believe these things. Azula would not say this nonsense. Maybe she is playing Ty Lee.

"I will never run again, unless I take you with me. You're right that I should have at least been as decent as Zuko and left a note that night. I think I had more selfish reasons than Zuko, but…" Azula does convince herself to give a pleading glance now.

"Stop it," Ty Lee snarls, much more quietly, albeit with a very red face.

"I have had absolutely everything except for this. I kind of want some _people_ to remember me and not just history books and legends. And I kind of want to do the... the thing before I run out of time. And seeing as I seem to want to do the... the thing with you and your time is running out faster than mine, I had to make the choice." Azula leans back and tries to look powerful, even though she is certain she has just made herself look like a simpering weakling.

But Azula has to make this happen. She chased Ty Lee for fun for years, but she never knew what she would do when she caught her. Now Azula does.

"You can't actually mean any of that," Ty Lee whispers and Azula gazes at her for a moment.

"Well, it's completely up to you if I'm lying or not," Azula says lightly.

"I don't believe a word," Ty Lee says honestly. "You're just saying what I want to hear. Telling me how you love me when you just want me as a shield to protect you from harm. Maybe you do _want me_. I think you must. But I'm sure there's something in this city that you need for your conquest."

"If you say so," Azula says lightly, shrugging.

"I'm sorry. I love you, but I'm not a piece in your game anymore. Good luck with whatever you're doing, and maybe we'll bump into each other again one day," Ty Lee says, her voice constricted with emotion.

_Please don't walk away, please don't walk away, _Azula cannot silence the disturbing plea within her.

She walks away.

* * *

_**A/N: **This is my first rewrite, but it really was just cleaning it up. Things start drastically changing from here on out. I wasn't intending to upload my rewrites for another month so I have to get my sh!t together in order to post. Chapter 10 will be the final chapter, as originally intended with this fic._


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

* * *

Azula cannot accept the idea that Ty Lee does not want her anymore.

Ty Lee _always _wanted Azula; Azula _always _wanted Ty Lee.

Before Azula ran away to Republic City, they had a tumultuous romantic relationship. When it was good it was fantastic; when it was bad it was horrible. They could live only in extremes for years, and Azula never cared enough to try to change it.

Now she wishes she had realized what she had before it was gone.

Recently, maybe even on the ship to Caldera, Azula discovered that her feelings for Ty Lee were genuine. She chased the girl and thought she won her, but she supposes she was wrong. And Azula is rarely ever wrong.

She stops pacing in her temporary jail cell and trying to wrap her head around Ty Lee walking out on her when Zuko enters. He sweats and looks uncomfortable, and she supposes he believes her about as much as Ty Lee does.

"I'm here to release you. Or, at least, take you back to the palace," Zuko says. "As long as you follow the conditions I've set up you can return to house arrest. You have a second chance, and I'd advise you not to waste it."

"Oh, I don't intend to," Azula purrs as she openly holds out her wrists. She should win an award for not insulting his pretend-mature tone.

Her strange behavior – her compliance most of all – unnerves him. He wonders if her desire for Ty Lee and a family is really enough for her to turn herself in so easily. He wonders if she even desires Ty Lee and a family in the first place. Elaborate ruses and disappearing acts are her specialties.

"Good," he belatedly responds.

Azula smirks and walks between her guards.

"So, where is she?" Azula inquires.

Zuko looks her up and down; maybe it _is _love that makes his sister behave crazier than ever.

He does not know what that observation means.

[X]

"I see my lodgings have not improved," Azula complains as she looks at her expansive and well-kept living quarters. Zuko rubs his face and sighs. "I will set aside my comfort and dignity and accept this offer of returning to my ancestral home. Oh, I'm sorry, ancestral prison. It is in fact slightly better than that cell."

Zuko grunts. "I'm glad you think so."

"Where is she?" Azula asks for the fourth time in the past hour.

"For the _last time_, I don't know. She's been living here without drawing attention to herself somehow, but I did give her a healer to go see. I hope he can help her," Zuko states as Azula studies him with scrutiny.

"I need to find her," Azula says.

But, as it turns out, Ty Lee finds her.

They sit in Azula's small living room in uncomfortable silence. On the ship it felt like Azula had never left and they were still together. Obviously, that has changed.

"I don't know if I want to involve you in any of this. I don't even know if I _want _to try to get cured," Ty Lee says and Azula's eyes flash.

"_Of course _you are going to get cured. Go with me to this healer Zuko talks about," Azula orders, straightening her back with a ferocious gleam in her eyes.

Maybe once upon a time it would have been enough for Ty Lee to try, but now she does not know anymore. It _could _be an opportunity to see if Azula's intentions are as pure as the princess makes them out to be.

"You left me, and running after me is romantic, yeah, but I know you're going to break my heart again," Ty Lee softly says, wringing her hands. Her heart is screaming to give Azula another chance, but her head is screaming that Azula has had enough chances.

"Let me try to make it up to you," Azula insists, a vehement glint in her gilded eyes.

"You always say stuff like that. You say it because it's what I want to hear and you want me," Ty Lee whispers and Azula tenses. "And you only are here, you only chased me because I'm dying."

Azula does not know if that is true or not, but she will not waste what time she has left with the one that got away.

[X]

Ty Lee allows Azula to accompany her to the famous healer a few miles away from Caldera. They have to bring what feels like a platoon of soldiers in order to follow the law, and it stresses Ty Lee out more than the appointment.

He supposedly can help her, but he will probably give her an estimate on how long she has to live.

Azula knows she can force her way back into Ty Lee's heart, she realizes as she sits in a waiting room filled with candles and mini waterfalls. Princess Azula thinks about her legacy as she tries not to think about Ty Lee dying. She was so obsessed with being important after she died that she did not notice the important things about being alive. Azula has made her mark on history; she will never be forgotten.

Now she just needs to try to live, to live and have a family and a happily ever after.

She wishes she had figured that out earlier.

Ty Lee walks out of the room with a grim expression. Azula's heart skips a beat.

"He says he can ease the symptoms until it's over," Ty Lee bluntly says to the princess. Azula does not want to hear that.

"No cure?" Azula snarls.

"There's experimental treatment in Republic City, but I don't want that," Ty Lee says, moving to leave.

"You should do it. Why wouldn't you do it?" Azula demands, sitting up and following Ty Lee. "You should try to live, shouldn't you? I'm sure I can get that treatment for—"

"I don't want it, Azula," Ty Lee whispers. Her quietness makes Azula very uncomfortable; she does not know where the girl she loved went.

But Azula keeps quiet, despite the betrayal.

Outside of the healer's office, "You used to love me. I thought I used to love you but I think – I know – that I still do. I would destroy the world for you," Azula says in the most grandiose way possible. Ty Lee often cannot believe her. "I would burn the sky down or..."

Ty Lee sets one finger on Azula's lips. "I know. I would die for you… but I won't live for you. And I certainly won't go through _experiments _so you can have me for a little longer."

Ty Lee starts to walk away.

Azula resorts to desperation. Weakness is the only thing that will get her what she wants most, and she would do anything to get what she wants most. "Please! Please don't leave again!"

Ty Lee turns around with an eyebrow cocked. "Is Princess Azula the Conqueror begging?"

"Yes," Azula spits. It makes her sick, but this venture is worth it. "I told you I would kill for you and I would certainly beg on my knees for you."

"Well, that is the most romantic thing you have ever said to me." Ty Lee glows and Azula knows she has a chance now.

"I won't force you to try to cure yourself, but how do you want to spend your last days alive?" Azula whispers.

Ty Lee gazes at her feet. "You really won't give up, will you?"

Coldly, Azula replies, "Never. I refuse to be defeated."

Ty Lee smiles softly to herself. She blushes that light pink shade that Azula sees when Ty Lee loves her the most. That smile, that flush and that gentle trembling, mean that Ty Lee loves her.

"Meet me at midnight in the Western Courtyard. I promise I'll be there. Do you promise me that? Because you have a history of vanishing without saying goodbye."

"I promise." Azula is not lying this time. She hopes Ty Lee can see that.

[X]

"I have seven hours before I need to meet Ty Lee," Azula explains to Zuko within minutes of arriving at the palace. He cannot believe it when he sets aside his work to attend to the matter of _Azula and Ty Lee_. "I have to get a ring before then. Seeing as I cannot leave this palace without proper accompaniment, you must come with me."

Zuko sighs. "She's not going to say yes," he has to say. He has to be honest about this.

"She's absolutely going to say yes, and you are going to help me pick out a ring."

"I know nothing about rings."

"You're Fire Lord. My Triad powers have significantly weakened since my flight from Republic City."

He decides that he can perhaps talk her out of it with more time, so he agrees to help her with the intimidation of shopkeepers. Zuko cannot let her do this. There is no way on Earth that Ty Lee would _ever _agree to marry Azula.

However, Zuko knows that Azula has to make her own mistakes to learn from them, just like has in his life. If she asks for his help, he will give it the best he can.

And so they head off to the most famous blacksmith in the Fire Nation. Azula talks about rings and Zuko looks at royal seals that are meant to go on them.

He cannot help but realize that she is serious.

Zuko never thought Azula could fall in love. He doubts she ever thought so either. But maybe it is one of those inevitable parts of human nature.

He thought helping her was just lip service, but by the time the ring is white hot, he thinks he wants her to succeed with Ty Lee.

[X]

"The fire is still there, but it's gotten cold over the years," is the first thing Ty Lee says when she meets up with Azula.

Azula had been waiting on a stone bench, gazing at the pale moon and the dull stars. The sky becomes less impressive as she ages, but despite how powerful she is, it always has a way of making her feel small.

The courtyard has changed, she has changed, Ty Lee has changed.

"Let me heat it up again," Azula purrs so smoothly that Ty Lee almost slips.

The more Ty Lee tries to escape, the more Azula's allure increases. But Ty Lee believes in her own strength and her wisdom. Yes, she feels those flutter bats, but she needs to ignore them and use her head so that Azula never plays her again.

Yet, Ty Lee _does _have that lingering doubt that perhaps Azula is not lying this time. What happens then? What happens if Ty Lee does not even try?

"I'll see how tonight goes," the smart side of Ty Lee says. Her stupid side would jump onto Azula's lap.

Azula rises and they walk together through the moonlit courtyard. The conversation comes as easily as it always does when their paths cross again. That might be the hardest part of their tangled relationship.

When they reach the most beautiful fountain in Caldera, Azula decides to go for it. She always gets what she wants and she does not expect that comfort to vanish any time soon.

"I am going to ask you something," Azula says, taking Ty Lee by the arm and then sliding her grip down to her hand. Azula presses the ring into her palm. "Will you marry me."

The beautiful band drops into the grass. Ty Lee is too shocked to speak for a moment before quickly replying, "No! Absolutely not!"

Azula forces herself not to gasp. Her head spins. She never would have anticipated that answer.

Panicked, Ty Lee attempts to salvage the situation by kissing Azula on the lips. She bites down and sucks and Azula pulls away.

"You should not have done that," Azula snarls. "You clearly do not want me and I am tired of wasting my—"

Ty Lee kisses her again. Azula wants to burn her for interrupting royalty, but the kiss forces those feelings back to the surface where they simmer, bubble and singe her insides.

Into Azula's neck, Ty Lee whispers, "There's only one good way to spend the last days of your life.

[X]

In the morning, Azula wakes confused and alone. She does not like to feel that way, but she understands why she cannot shake the negative sensation; the world always plays by her rules, but last night it did not. Ty Lee rejected the engagement, but they had sex right after she said no.

What happened? What were they thinking? Azula hasn't a clue.

Once she gets dressed and collects herself, she finds parchment, a pen and an inkwell. She writes three separate letters to Kun Song, Saiko and Meng Kui in order to inquire about the experimental cures the healer talked about. They know everyone and everything in Republic City; Azula knows at least one of them will have an answer.

She steals a palace messenger hawk to send them.

Hopefully, if she has more exact information, she can save Ty Lee's life, _and _prove that she deserves to regain Ty Lee's affection.

She goes to breakfast and finds Ty Lee there. The retired Kyoshi Warrior averts her eyes.

"What?" Azula hoarsely demands. She does not even bother with sitting down.

"I need to not need you. Whenever I'm with you, you become my life. When I'm in love in general – I'm a romantic – when I'm in love I don't think about anything but my romance. You make that even worse. If I'm worried about someone else, and have my heart controlling me, I'm never going to do what I want right now," Ty Lee explains, oddly articulately.

"What?" Azula demands again.

"I want to live it up while I can. I want to do all of the things that I didn't do before," Ty Lee says. "And you only hurt me, and you are probably lying, and even if you're sincere our relationship always is toxic. That fire is still there, but I have to ignore it if I want to be happy."

Azula clenches her fists. "I can live it up with you."

"If you love me, you'd care about my happiness more than yours."

Ty Lee wordlessly leaves, facing the wall so that Azula cannot see the tears on her cheeks.

[X]

Kun Song responds to Azula's letter first. It is long and filled with useful information. Most of the cure is done via the black market, and one of the men in charge recently fled to Caldera. Kun Song even knows just how she can track him down and find out where to go, what to get, and who to coerce.

At the moment, she is risking everything by sneaking out while on house arrest. She also is risking everything by cornering and interrogating the man Kun Song talked to her about.

"Tell me where," Azula whispers with fire in her eyes. "Tell me."

"You have infinite resources and I'm no fool. What do I get?" he smugly says.

Azula moves lightning fast and pins him against the alleyway wall by the neck with one hand and lights the other an inch away from his face.

"You'll get to keep your intact face and eyesight," she purrs so pretty. He gulps and she smirks.

"Go to Crimson Dragon Society territory and ask for Skinny Chan. He's the only one who does business with them. That's all I know, I swear. Please let me go. Please." He sniffs in so pathetically that Azula briefly considers sparing him.

Azula laughs a purely unhinged cackle.

"I'm afraid this isn't your lucky day." Before he can react she has stopped his heart with her lightning.

It was a clean death, at least.

Azula might be becoming kinder.

[X]

"Ty Lee, can I talk to you?" Azula asks when she comes across the ghost who haunts the palace with her but without her. "It's about a cure for your disease."

"I don't know if I want one," Ty Lee says, but she gestures for Azula to sit across from her.

"I spoke to Kun Song and he told me about the experimental cures in Republic City. They're illegal, but extremely effective, I hear. I tracked down someone important in the operation and he told me where to go to do business with them," Azula says. Her eyes glitter like a cat who has brought her human a dead mouse-rabbit.

"I'm not going to get prodded by dirty needles bought on the black market to stay alive for you," Ty Lee says. "What made you change your mind about wanting me back? You're doing more than just what you would do to be with a girlfriend."

Azula squirms slightly. She takes a deep breath.

"I want to have a human life," she admits.

"That's a weird word to use," Ty Lee says, laughing nervously.

"I was told I was inhuman. Well, more than once in my life by multiple people. But I started to realize that my legacy was not enough for me when my second in command argued with me. No one argued with me, but Kun Song did that night. He said I had nothing human left in my eyes. I burnt him... then fucked him. I never told him he was right, but he was."

Ty Lee slowly nods and Azula thinks she may have won. But Ty Lee just understands; that does not mean she will agree. "I won't be your fantasy or your way to make yourself feel better about what you've done to people."

Azula's fingers burn bright blue as she stands up at the speed of lightning. "I don't want you to be."

Ty Lee stops walking. "Yes, yes you do. We can be friends again. That's it."

[X]

Azula sits on the stone bench where she met Ty Lee a few nights ago. She has been staring at bushes for an alarming amount of time now. Zuko has been watching from afar and wondering if he should approach her.

He knows Ty Lee said no, and he presumes she is just distressed that she didn't get something she wants. Zuko still knows he should talk to her, though.

"What are you thinking about?" Zuko attempts as he walks up behind her.

She shifts her gaze to her feet for a few long moments.

"Maybe you can give me some advice from someone who has had a terrible life and fucks up constantly," Azula says. She then cannot hide the severity on her face. "How… how do you look at the one person you love and tell them that it's time to walk away?"

Zuko's stomach twists. He has never seen her like this. He never wants to see her like this because it is frightening to see an Azula with… feelings. A human and not a monster.

"You don't," Zuko says fiercely, hoping he will not regret it. "You don't ever do that."


	8. Chapter 8

**_Book Two_**_  
_

_So let the ground crumble underneath my feet_  
_ No six feet's never gonna be enough to bury me_  
_ As long as I am on your shoulders_  
_ We'll be standing when the world is over.  
"Never Get to Heaven" - Sarah Blaine  
_

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

* * *

Seven months after letting Ty Lee go, Azula wakes up hung-over.

It takes her a moment to realize that she was asleep on the living room floor of her Republic City flat. She smells metal and burning hair, but the sun pouring through her windows is too bright to let her open her eyes. She crawls to the curtains and draws them.

Azula sees the source of the smell. She left a streak of blood on the fabric, and looks at her drenched hand. When she touches her body, she notices that she is not just damp with sweat. Azula pivots around and sees she was lying in a puddle of blood, but she does not feel hurt.

She follows the trail leading into her bedroom. Her heart races as she slowly slides it open.

If she had not seen so many corpses in her life, she might have thrown up, but all she feels is mild shock.

_"__You are lovely," Azula breathes. _

_She caresses the face of a pretty girl who is not the right pretty girl._

Azula freezes in place. She has behaved herself for a long time, long enough to ease her brother's nerves and return to Republic City. Of course, she reclaimed her Triad as soon as he stopped _watching _her, but she would never make such a mess in her own home.

She snaps into action; she has to clean this place and get rid of the body.

[X]

Ty Lee pokes at her engagement ring again. She loves it, but she also feels worried. Now would be the appropriate time to tell Kun Song what she knows.

"I have to be honest with you," Ty Lee says to her fiancé. "I know you work for my ex-girlfriend. I've known that since we first started dating. I just didn't expect she would let you do this."

"You said _ex_, didn't you?" he asks with a broad smile. She knows he knows what he has gotten them into, which is both cute and scary.

"Well, yes, but…" Ty Lee trails off; she should not have to explain herself.

Kun Song dares ask, "You still thought she was hopelessly in love with you?"

Ty Lee blushes. "Yeah, something like that."

She brushes her hair behind her ear. That announcement was somehow even more awkward than she thought it would be.

"She told me to spy on you—and protect you—and protect you, you know…" It is his turn to blush. It looks funny on such a muscly guy.

"The protecting is actually worse than the spying. She's been having me followed since forever. I can protect myself, though." Ty Lee's mouth tastes sour. She has grown tired of Azula being in her life… and too often in her mind.

Kun Song clears his throat and clarifies, "It's not because you're weak—"

"It's because I'm sick," Ty Lee snaps before restoring herself to a ladylike position. "I know. Do you still report back to her?"

He breaks out into a sweat before she can even finish talking. "I… that's a hard question."

"No, it's really not," Ty Lee states, losing her cute demeanor. "I didn't ask you for the meaning of life or if pink will ever go out of style. Nothing existential like that. I asked you if you're still working for Princess Azula."

He, ashamed, whispers, "Yes."

"And did you ask her if you could marry me?" Ty Lee inquires, hoping for a good answer.

Even quieter, he whispers, "No."

That was the right one. Ty Lee feels a rush of relief, then the tension of panic.

"She won't like that. She might even kill you," Ty Lee says. It hurts when it dawns on her.

He takes her hands in his. "That's a chance I'm willing to take."

"How romantic and suicidal of you," Ty Lee replies, trying to smile. She cannot manage. "Let's go home. I don't feel good."

[X]

After dinner, Ty Lee lies down in her bed. She feels weary, nauseous, tired and the heated rice on her stomach does not have much of an effect. Kun Song finishes tucking her in, which she does not find _terrible_, but also finds pretty depressing.

"I'm going to be gone until morning. Are you okay until then?" he asks, yet again. Ty Lee has heard it enough for one day.

"I'm not two. I'm fine," Ty Lee sharply says, wondering how many times and with how many people she will have to have this talk.

"Okay." He stands up and leaves.

Ty Lee watches him.

She does not know when she falls asleep; she drifts out of this world without noticing.

The screech of a window opening wakes Ty Lee. She shoves the bag of rice off of her and sits straight up. It makes her body hurt so much that she does not remember how to ball up her fists.

"Calm down," says a voice she has not heard in seven months. "I'm just checking on you. It took him long enough to leave."

Ty Lee sits and stares. The figure that the moonlight illuminates could not possibly be who it looks like. Then again, Azula has a really creepy history of showing up in Ty Lee's house. She is the poster child for abuse of power.

"I'm marrying him and you can't stop me," Ty Lee says, holding up her hand. The ruby on the ring glitters in the starlight.

"How nice for you. He can give you your darling little children and, well, not much else. I could give you anything you ever desired but it seems like a fair trade. You have absolutely upgraded," Azula says, and Ty Lee does not have the energy to roll her eyes. She is loath to admit that she still finds the egotism pretty sexy.

Azula walks across the room and sits down on Ty Lee's bed. She has kept her distance, but hiding a body with Meng Kui this morning has made her recall the event that intertwined their lives. Everything was so much simpler then.

Princess Azula misses it.

"I really haven't been following you," Azula earnestly replies.

Ty Lee frowns. "Just sending people to spy on me."

"Something like that." Azula shrugs and tries to touch Ty Lee's hand. The acrobat yanks hers away before Azula can even get close. "Are you in pain?"

"No," Ty Lee whispers, even though her body could not be hurting more.

"You are not a very good liar," Azula whispers. The air in the room shifts and the heat of the summer night intensifies. "I don't mind. I like being able to know what you're thinking."

Ty Lee meets Azula's gaze for the first time tonight. Softly, enraptured, Ty Lee inquires, "What am I thinking?"

Azula confidently smirks. "That you hate yourself for missing me so much."

"You let me go," Ty Lee says, wondering why she feels bitter about getting what she wanted. It was the best choice at the time and still is. The outcome has been positive.

"I know I did, and I will never ask for you back," Azula says. It is the pure truth.

Ty Lee lies back down. Azula touches her left ribs and Ty Lee jumps. The princess slowly pulls away her hand and studies it. Ty Lee feels dizzy and remembers just how heavily medicated she is.

"Are you real?" Ty Lee whispers.

Azula makes a grand show of looking at her hands and feet. "I think so," she softly replies.

Ty Lee goes with her gut instinct and whispers, "Prove it."

Princess Azula has no problem with that. She leans down and kisses Ty Lee on the lips. The sensation draws her in like a whirlpool. She will probably be crushed at the bottom of it, but she lets it suck her down.

Ty Lee sets her hand on Azula's neck. Of course. They cannot be apart for too long; they never could be.

Azula undoes her shirt.

[X]

Ty Lee wakes up and hopes last night was a dream. She cannot face her fiancé if it was real. If Azula was there, she is long gone now. Ty Lee has had strange dreams before; this could be one of them.

She gets up and wraps her sheets around her bare body.

If it was a dream… it was a good one, and that makes Ty Lee feel gross.

After being engaged for one night, Ty Lee has already cheated.

[X]

That same morning, Azula wrings her hands. She should not have done that. She almost got over her feelings for Ty Lee, and now she has brought them back. For months, Azula sought a cure. She used all of her connections in this city, but she found nothing new. Just dead end after dead end and she knew Ty Lee would be dead before she could end her search.

She could not stop thinking about how she could not remember murdering Saiko. A girl she had known for years. A girl who she had been sleeping with for a very unfulfilling note. A girl who Azula should absolutely and completely remember slashing to pieces because that is the kind of thing that people remember.

Azula does not have the room in her mind to think about her tryst with Ty Lee. While she may have killed scores of people, she has never known herself to do something like that. What could have provoked her?

It torments her that she has no clue.

Azula looks up when someone sits beside her on the park bench.

Meng Kui.

"I arranged your meeting for this afternoon," says Azula's enforcer. Her voice is stilted; she has not quite processed hiding her close friend's body yesterday.

"You didn't need to come all the way out here, presumably following me, to tell me that, now did you?" Azula asks, her eyes following a waterbender training on the other side of the stream. "What do you really want?"

"The police busted some black market vendors," says Meng Kui.

"And I care why?" Azula asks.

"Because one of them offered to help you find something you're allegedly looking for in exchange for going free."

Darkly, Azula whispers, "What was I looking for?"

Meng Kui swallows and digs her feet into the grass. "A cure. I know it's out of place to ask, but are you sick?"

"No," Azula whispers, quickly averting her eyes. She has no idea how this man knows anything about her lengthy quest, but she knows it is worth hearing him out.

[X]

"Police Stations aren't exactly your favorite places, are they?" bitterly asks Chief Beifong. Azula sighs. They are not, and she does not need some loudmouth to point it out to her.

"Someone held here insisted upon talking to me. I heard about it and I want to investigate it. I don't like my name on the lips of criminals," Azula says, and Chief Beifong starts walking. Princess Azula follows. Toph unlocks a door. Azula lays eyes on a number of imprisoned lowlifes.

Chief Toph Beifong leads Azula down the hallway and to the penultimate cell. If it isn't Skinny Chan, the first suspect Azula interrogated on her path to nowhere. She imagines he must be fairly desperate.

"Are you sick?" Toph bluntly asks and Azula is certain he is desperate.

She wonders how much else of the city he has raved to. Azula knew it was a mistake to let him live.

"No," Azula coldly replies. She wraps her hand around one of the bars but reconsiders when it looks like he might bite her. She remains far more poised than that when locked up. "I already talked to you. You led me to a dead end."

"I still work trafficking medicine and—"

Toph impatiently interjects, "Spider-snake oil and illegal surgery."

"Shut up," Azula snaps and Chief Beifong's hand twitches. She restrains herself, because she wants to hear what this weirdo has to say. "Now, Skinny Chan, my _dear _friend, tell me exactly what you think I ought to know."

"I'll tell you if you promise I can go free," he stammers.

"I will help you out if your claims are valid. Not before then," Azula states and Toph wants to mention that Azula has no power to do that… until she recalls that she herself has before used that simple interrogation tactic.

"There are some healers out to the east that are looking into stuff about blood. I don't know all of it, except I've been getting, well, blood for them. They've been using it for what you were asking about back then. They might know," Skinny Chan frantically says.

"Well, I think you have just confessed to too significant of a crime for me to beg a favor from my friend Chief Beifong. I will look into this," Azula says, walking away. She leaves the Police Station before Toph can bother asking another question.

She needs to figure out where these people are.

Maybe there still is a chance that Azula can save her true love.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

* * *

"So," Chief Beifong says, sitting across from Azula over tea in a little shop at the heart of town, "are you sick?"

Azula scowls and shakes her head. Then she realizes Toph cannot see her and so she loudly sighs.

"I do not see what business of yours it is," Azula says, trying to return to her drink.

"It's not. I don't really care; I'm just curious," Toph replies. "You seem pretty desperate for this cure thing and I think you're the kind of person who'd do anything to save her own skin including flaying anybody else's."

"How poetic of you," Azula snarls. She takes a heavy, shuddering breath and collects herself. Azula will _not _let this pathetic woman get to her. Azula stands up and leaves copper pieces on the table. "Goodbye, Chief Beifong. It has, again, been a pleasure working with you."

Toph laughs bluntly at the sarcasm as Azula leaves the teashop.

[X]

Azula tracks down one of the healers in a matter of days. She does have infinite resources at her disposal and informs her underlings that these healers are enemies of the Agni Kai Triad. And so, they find the leader quickly.

It is an older man by the name of Aigu.

Princess Azula follows him through Republic City. She blends into the shadows, as she learned to do over the time she spent vanishing for years at a time. He does not notice her as she trails him like a huntress, like a soldier again. It feels good.

He goes about average business. He buys a few groceries but does not leave them at home, to Azula's inconvenience. He passes through the marketplace and buys nothing before heading down towards Yue Bay.

Aigu stops there and sets the bag of groceries down beside him as he sits on a deserted cliff. It is the coldest season and the beach has only a few people on it and one fisherman on farther rocks.

Azula scales a ledge and perches there, watching Aigu from afar.

[X]

Azula's legs ache by the time Aigu does anything of interest. A woman approaches him nonchalantly and sits down beside Aigu. They talk and Azula tries to get closer and hear them. She dislodges a rock and it tumbles, making her dart back and out of their sight.

They fall silent as they scan for the source, but turn to each other.

Azula creeps forward with more finesse this time.

She overhears a conversation riddled with language she did not understand, but with a clear description of an address where they were to meet.

[X]

Azula sits across a bar from Kun Song, an old not-so-much-a-friend. He sits surrounded by friends but nowhere near his fiancée. Tailing him is much more interesting than tailing Ty Lee; Azula outsources that job.

"So, this Earth Kingdom guy gets tired of screwing his wife and doesn't want to cheat so he decides to figure out a way to deal with it. He goes out with his supervisor, this Fire Nation man who's the foreman of the mines, and he tells him about his problems while they get drunk, right? He asks the man why he's so barbaric and tells him that civilized people from the Fire Nation screw for a little while then stop and read propaganda periodicals and then screw a little more and stop and cook their business books then screw a little more and go contemplate the stars.

"He goes home the next day and he screws his wife a little and then gets up and tries to read a scroll but he can't read, then he goes back and screws his wife some more, and gets up and goes to tally up his earnings from his rundown shop and he goes back and screws his wife some more.

"And she's getting sore at this point and frustrated so when he goes out to look up at the sky, she walks out and yells at him, 'What are you doing? You screw just like your boss.'"

Kun Song friends to not laugh. He is baffled until he feels claws on his shoulders.

Purrs the sophisticated princess to the frightened man, "That was a truly charming story. I am so glad you still have a knack for pretending to be witty."

"It's—I thought it was a good one," he says.

"Oh, I suppose it was. I will tell it to your fiancée next time I sleep with her behind your back." The fellows laugh at that one.

Azula glares at one of the miscreants and he does not give her his seat. He does not even avert his eyes, as he should.

"It is a very unwise idea to stare back at me like that, and a worse idea to sit while I stand," Azula says. He leaps him as if the chair is on fire.

"Here you go, of course, Dragon Master Azula, of course," he stammers. Azula sees a tattoo marking exactly one kill.

"How old are you?" Azula asks him, not releasing Kun Song but looking over her shoulder.

"F-fifteen."

"And you are in the Agni Kai Triad."

"Yes."

"How long have you been in the Agni Kai Triad?"

"Two years."

"I was hoping this was for second day. One kill is just _sad_. Perhaps you should go back to collecting Fire Scout badges. By the time I was fifteen I had organized two genocides and killed a few scores of grown men with my own two hands. I suggest all of you, especially the overly cocky toddler, leave," Azula orders. She digs her nails deeper into Kun Song's arm as the other kids scatter.

He turns to her and, while he properly averts his eyes, she can tell he knows his seniority in the organization.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" Kun Song asks.

Azula sets the slip of paper she has had crumpled in her hand all day onto the table. Kun Song studies it for a moment.

"An... address?" he inquires, befuddled.

"Yes. An address to a black market for medicine. I have been trailing some rogue healers who are working on a cure for a very certain disease," Azula says, smoothing out the parchment. "I thought you would have an investment in helping me."

"I think it's brilliant and dedicated of you, dragon Master Azula, but I don't think she should go through any experimental procedures right now."

"Why not?" Azula snaps, her eyes flashing like lightning.

"You see, uh, well, you see, she's pregnant and I think that might put her at more—"

Azula's hands are on his throat on an impulse. She pulls away as soon as she sees him gasping and choking. Her mind goes to the dead girl in her home only a few days ago. Azula thinks she is losing her mind again, and nothing scares her more than knowing at any moment she will start hallucinating or crumbling into a crying heap on the streets.

"I…" he rasps, but the pain in his throat prevents him from finishing his sentence.

"That could kill her. If you kill her, after I burn your baby alive, I will kill you via death by a thousand cuts. You will be in so many pieces that the Republic City police will not be able to distinguish you from diced meat."

He blanches and thinks he might vomit from fear.

"I won't let her die," Kun Song promises.

Azula leans back, orders him to leave, and orders herself a drink.

[X]

"What happened?" Ty Lee asks, four days after Kun Song's encounter with Azula. He has been a mess of nerves, which she takes as being about the pregnancy.

Today, it is not emotional distress. He has a bandage over his face.

"A run in with some muggers. I'm bad but if you want to see them you'd have to go to the morgue," he lies.

Ty Lee frowns. "That isn't true. I want you to tell me the truth or I will leave you."

"I'm working for the Agni Kai Triad again. I've been assigned to tracking an operation on the black market," he says, truthfully to the core, "and they figured out I was following them. They slashed my face open with a surgical knife and told me it was just a warning and next time they'd take off my ears."

He cannot win in this situation. Kun Song fears Dragon Master Azula much more than these healers—healers who apparently need hit men—but he fears losing his fiancée even more than Dragon Master Azula. Either way, someone is going to cut off his appendages.

"I wish you wouldn't," Ty Lee whispers. He wishes she were angry. It would make him feel a lot better about his actions. "I just want a stable, happily ever after for the rest of my life."

_Which isn't very long_, Kun Song wants to say, but he keeps his mouth shut.

Maybe Dragon Master Azula is not so crazy for her dedication to this possible cure.

He remembers the night he told her she had nothing human left in her eyes. After that, she proved him right by pulling another one of her disappearing acts for a solid year, returning in hiding to Ba Sing Se to set up connections there. They still exist; she did well, but he knew she was just running.

Even after she found Ty Lee and followed her to the Fire Nation, she had even less humanity in her eyes and her posture and her voice.

In the bar a couple days ago, he saw the most human emotion he had ever seen in those golden eyes.

Pure, unadulterated rage and fear. A combination of feelings that should have their own name, as they are so often linked to one emotion.

"I just have to finish up this stuff. I promise I'll find a way out again," Kun Song says at last.

Ty Lee just frowns at him, gets up, and goes to bed.

[X]

Kung Song is gone, out drinking, when someone knocks on the door.

Ty Lee gets up and goes to answer it. She shakes and struggles to walk at this point, but she has one fist clenched in case she needs to take the visitor down. When Ty Lee opens it, she sees a woman who looks worse than wear for her.

"Azula," Ty Lee whispers, feeling something age old inside of her melt. Whenever Ty Lee sees the princess, she becomes weak in the knees, ever since they were children. "Come inside."

"You are more welcoming than I thought you would be," Azula says, walking into the apartment above a noodle shop that belongs to Kun Song's aunt.

"I haven't seen many friends lately," Ty Lee says, sitting down and smiling dizzily.

"Just friends?" Azula asks, mocking her. Ty Lee would say _no _if she was not aware that the princess is fond of messing with her feelings.

Ty Lee smiles, not giving an indication of either possible answer.

"Do you want something, princess?" Ty Lee inquires.

"Just to sit for a while." Azula takes a seat across from her lost love.

She watches Ty Lee breathe. Her breath is weak and it pains Azula. But the princess's eyes drift from the way Ty Lee's chest slightly shudders with every inhalation and she watches Ty Lee's stomach rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall.

Ty Lee covers herself with the rose-hued blanket when she sees Azula's gaze.

"You must know I'm pregnant," Ty Lee says, and Azula nods.

"It might be a death sentence."

"I already have one. I _want _my happy ending, Azula. That's why I can't be with you."

"Because I can't knock you up or because you wouldn't be happy with me."

"Neither of those things. Just because you're not that type," Ty Lee says, but she looks at Azula as though otherwise is true.

Azula purses her lips.

[X]

Thanks to the diligence of Azula's underlings, she finds the store that is a front for one of the businesses that sells drugs. She has worked with many who do, but all the substances were recreational; these people sell medicine. The shop belongs to an herbalist, and Azula recognizes most everything here.

Azula walks to the front desk and smirks at the older woman.

"I really want to ask a favor," Azula says sweetly, leaning over the counter. "I'm from a smaller town where a colony used to be and I cannot get back for this… urgent matter. I don't know too much about all these city things. I don't recognize half of these herbs but I have a list."

"Tell me, dear," warmly says the woman.

"I need feverfew—" which her mother gave her for headaches, "—lemon balm—" which her mother gave her for her rather wild nerves, "—Echinacea—" which her mother gave her when she was sick, "carrot seed and blue and black cohosh."

Maybe her mother was slightly less useless than Azula imagined. She considers paying her mother a visit before almost laughing aloud at the thought.

"I can get you the first three, my dear," says the woman, beginning to stand.

Azula sets a small purse on the table. The substantial thud it makes against the wood glues the woman back to her seat.

"Will this change your mind?" Azula asks.

"I…" Well, that stuns the shopkeeper. "You'd have to go elsewhere. I can give you directions and a password for a… percentage or small consideration or whatever you would like to call it."

Azula leans in close.

"I usually call it a bribe," she whispers.

* * *

**_A/N: _**_I referenced my favorite noir movie in this chapter. A grand prize of zero dollars will go to the reader who can guess ;P (well, me being super impressed and excited, which is prize enough haha). Thank you for reading this far and I hope you're enjoying the show.  
_


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

* * *

Azula gets the information too late to immediately pursue her lead; she must find the sellers tomorrow. So, she begins her very, very long commute home. She shifts abodes frequently—even if she is semi-legit now—but regardless of where they are, it takes a good deal of time to avoid being followed.

She walks down several streets, stopping at several businesses that have no connection to each other, then backtracks, then takes a few turns, and once she is certain she is not followed, and the sun has set, she walks into the apartment she currently calls home.

Azula vacated her last place after she had to give away its location to those removing the corpse of her former lover. The earlier inhabitants of this apartment are… recently deceased. She has no qualms about her decision to take it by force; her own life is much more important than theirs, and they ran afoul of the Triad.

Upon leaving the Fire Nation a year ago, Azula maintained the spirit of the locks she kept in her beautiful manor and has many of them set up, but her paranoia has grown and she spent a good deal of time learning snares used by hunters. She passes those in a memorized pattern, then finally enters the small lodgings. The windows are welded shut by her own hand, as are all of the vents but one. It is certainly not a palace, but she has learned to appreciate the ease of managing a tiny space.

There are far less places for her many enemies to hide.

She checks every corner of her home, and finally curls up to go to sleep.

Not well. Not well at all.

[X]

Ty Lee sits across from Kun Song at a table in a noodle house. He took her out on a date but she does not know why yet. Due to the illness devouring her body, he holds onto her and helps her into the seat like a child. No, not even like a child, like a weak child.

She knows she is not as strong as she used to be, but she keeps thinking about a conversation she had while hanging from the top of a trillion crates with a Fire Nation flag in one hand. The exact words never come to mind, but she does remember reminding Azula what it feels like to be looked at with pity, looked at like you are weak or crazy or a combination of both.

And, as much as Ty Lee does not want to go back to Azula, she does know that she is the only person who does not look at Ty Lee like she is fragile.

Then again, Azula broke her heart too many times to count, and Kun Song has not done that once. She looks at him and offers him a warm smile. He smiles back while taking a deep breath. She wonders why.

"You look pale today. Did you sleep last night?" he asks, and Ty Lee reminds herself that he is just being polite or compassionate.

Then he asks variations of that question multiple times. He asks her if she likes her food and if she wants to eat something else because he does not want her skipping meals.

She gets up from the table and he jumps out of his seat to grab onto her.

That is not chivalry; that is pity.

Ty Lee pushes on him. She _is _weaker than she used to be, but he steps back at the too-light touch against his barrel of a chest.

"This isn't working for me," Ty Lee says, incredulous at herself. She does not know what she is doing, she just knows it is what she wants.

"I don't… we don't have to leave yet?" Kun Song squints. "I don't really know what you mean."

"I _mean _that our engagement is over," Ty Lee says. She gazes at him for a few seconds before she leaves the restaurant.

Outside, she rests both of her palms on the stone wall. Walking that fast left her winded, and even though she does not want him to see her like this, she cannot just run out of places anymore. It surprises her how much it does not scare her anymore.

Once her legs stop wobbling and her head stops spinning, she releases the wall and slowly walks to pack her things.

[X]

That same day, Azula arrives at the offices of the illegal herbalist, which is possibly different from a drug dealer. The shop advertises tailoring services and has clothing on display, but the woman she bribed said to seek the rest of her shopping list here. She is not certain if this will work out, but it is worth a try.

Her hair dripping with rain, she walks inside and stands at the counter.

"We're closing in a moment," says the man, looking up from the box he is sliding onto a shelf. "I can't offer much unless you're here to pick something up."

"I am not looking for clothes," says Azula, drumming her fingernails on the table.

The sound makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

"Well, this is a tailor's shop, ma'am," he says, standing to face her.

"Do you know who I am?" Azula inquires and he shakes his head. "I am the leader of the Agni Kai Triad and I want to do business with you."

He narrows his eyes. Lee sees her eyes and they match the descriptions he has heard, which are mostly, _inhuman scary glowing gold _ones.

"Fine. What do you need?" he asks.

"I am looking for a few disgraced healers who are looking into rare cures," explains Princess Azula, and his face registers that he knows what she is talking about.

"I've never heard of that," he firmly states, like a fool.

"I can tell you are lying. I also will inform you that the woman I love is dying and I will do _anything _to find these people. That anything might involve you losing an eye to one of these sewing needles you just keep lying around." Azula picks one up and shrugs.

"Well, of course, I think…"

"Don't make up an excuse. Just tell me where to find them."

[X]

The next day, Aigu is studying scrolls at the counter of his hunting shop. His _father's_, at least. It was a successful family business during the war, when weapons were much more practical. There still are significant risks of traveling alone and, of course, some people actually do use the weapons for their intended purpose. But he is grateful he wanted to be a healer instead of a weapons' dealer. The job security was excellent until they arrested him for trying to help people.

He hears the door open and sighs, setting down the notes he stole all the way from Ba Sing Se. Some drenched woman walks in and he looks up at her with a defeated expression.

"Can I help you?" They always come in five minutes before he wants to close up.

"Yes," says Azula, striding inside. "You are going to tell me everything you know about the cure you are working on or I am going to chain you to that counter and burn this place down with you inside of it."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says, knowing what a convincing liar he has become over the past few years.

She lifts her fingers and ignites them. "I have had a long day and this is time sensitive. The Agni Kai Triad will help you with your research if you do this for me."

It is the kindest offer she has ever given.

He notices the off-putting shade of the fire on her fingers and suddenly knows who he is dealing with. People _do _describe it as _unnatural terrifying blue _fire.

"It's too complicated to explain."

"I learn quickly." Azula shuts the door and locks it before approaching the counter. He tries to hide his instinctive step back, but she sees it.

"We're doing blood transfusions," he says, which Azula does not understand. "I said it was complicated."

"Keep talking."

[X]

It is late at night when Azula walks home. She has made an arrangement with Aigu to bolster his business and research and he will cure her. Azula considers going to find Ty Lee, but she decides she is too tired to scale an apartment building. So, she takes the two-hour journey back to her current home.

She walks down multiple streets, strange ones tonight; she has not often visited the section of town where Aigu lives. Azula stops at different points, but the businesses are closed by now. She backtracks almost to Aigu's shop, and then turns, creating a maze of her footsteps, and knows she is not being followed. It is the most relieving feeling there is.

No, sitting there learning about blood transfusions is the most relieving feeling there is.

The moon is at its apex when she arrives at the apartment. She fumbles for her keys in her bag and unlocks each lock, her hands shaking. Princess Azula realizes she has not eaten all day, which might explain the trembling. But she has been too busy on the most thrilling hunt she has ever partook in.

She passes the snares in her memorized pattern, then finally enters her sealed off home. Azula almost falls over when she sees that someone is inside today. That does not make sense; she has taken every possible precaution.

Maybe the shocking thing is not that this woman has gotten through the traps, but who it is.

"Ty Lee? How did you get in here?" Azula breathlessly asks, looking the frail woman up and down. "There is no way you could…"

"I watched you yesterday. You think you're good at avoiding people following you, but, well, you're good at pretty much everything else so it doesn't matter," Ty Lee says. She sets her palm on the floor to stand up but cannot muster the energy.

Azula is at a loss for words. It is very difficult to do that to the princess.

"Why are you here? Shouldn't you be home with your cute fiancé?" Azula asks, not meaning to sound as bitter as she does. But the damage is done and she has no regrets.

"He's not my fiancé anymore. I broke up with him yesterday."

"But you're having his baby."

"So what? I can do it…" Ty Lee trails off. "I mean, I have _plans _of where she'll go after I die. I'm spontaneous and stuff but I'm not as stupid as people think."

"I am honored but—"

"Azula, I mean this with the most respect ever but I wouldn't trust you to raise one of my plants. I'm giving her to Mai and Zuko," Ty Lee says and Azula starts to laugh. Ty Lee does not get it, but it is infectious. Maybe they both have realized how insane they are. "But I do want to maybe try to date you."

Princess Azula has been waiting to hear that for a very long time. Ever since the moment Azula walked into that bar, she has been trying to prove that she is just as perfect for Ty Lee as Ty Lee believed since they were young. Her disappearing act should not have been enough to lose the love and obsession the acrobat offered.

But apparently, it was not enough.

It was not enough until this moment.

Azula takes Ty Lee by the hand and helps her to her feet. She does not immediately release Ty Lee, and instead pulls her into a very deep kiss.

The kiss is not sexual, like their past ones have been. Sleeping with each other every so often never meant much to them. They were all supposed to be one night stands, never meant to prompt romance. So this kiss is different. It is the kind Azula forgot about.

It is the kind Ty Lee forgot about too.

"You can stay with me," Azula says. She keeps it cold but Ty Lee knows it means a lot.

"This place isn't really the royal palace I imagined, but that's kind of why I showed up," Ty Lee says, snatching Azula's hand again. She does not want to let go of her.

"And I have very good news on top of that," says Azula, quite proud of herself. "I have spent the past weeks seeking the cure I gave up on finding, and I found it. Tonight I met with the man who designed it. You can be cured and have your happily ever after."

Ty Lee suddenly looks hurt, the way she does when Azula lashes out at her or gives her too cruel of an order. The princess has no clue why she looks that way. She should be _so happy_. This is the greatest gift Azula has ever given.

"I kind of thought…" Ty Lee pulls her hand away and avoids letting Azula seize her again. "I kind of thought that was different. I thought you gave up on it."

"No, I didn't," Azula says, still not sure why Ty Lee is not gushing thank yous.

"I don't want to be part of some experiment. I've really come to terms with this and I only came to you because you don't act like I'm… _sick_. But obviously you don't love me unless you can have me forever and I don't know why you always just _assume _I'm going to do whatever you say. I mean, I know I obey you a lot, but you can't force me to do this."

"You want to be with me. Why would you not want to be with me forever? Why not see your baby grow up?" Azula demands, her eyes burning. Ty Lee's just look dull despite glistening from the tears in them.

"I don't know what I think right now. It was a mistake for me to come here."

Ty Lee is gone before Azula can find the words or movements to stop her.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven  
**

* * *

Azula sits at _Smoke and Mirrors_, waiting for her visitor.

She has little interest in her drink, or those around her, or anything but last night's extreme confusion. Every time she gets close to that woman, she loses her. It hurts worse than anything Azula has endured, which is a remarkable statement.

Finally, a frazzled Kun Song walks up the stairs and kneels in front of her.

"I need to talk to you about a business venture of mine," Azula says, crossing her legs and clasping her hands on her knee. He straightens his back but does not stand. "I have stumbled across a procedure that she, of course, has refused, but I want to make a reality. If we set it up as legitimate and make a certain level of effort, I do believe she can be convinced to prolong her life."

"Have you seen her, ma'am?" breathlessly asks Kun Song, his eyes wide.

He is an enforcer of Agni Kai Triad justice, feared almost as much as Azula herself, but he looks like a scared child after losing his Ty Lee. Perhaps Azula feels less humiliated now that she has seen the look on his face.

"Yes. Last night she stopped by my house and tried to get back together with me. Then she threw a fit and ran away." Azula sighs. "Yet, I still try." She glances over her shoulder at her timid guest. "Aigu, this is Kun Song. He will be happy to help your cause, and I also will provide any other Triad resources you need."

Kun Song nods. "Can I ask what the plan is?"

"No, but I am feeling very kind today and so I will tell you anyway. We are setting up a clinic," purrs Princess Azula. "Finding volunteers might be difficult, which is why people with our skill set will be so useful, not to mention protecting our investment from greedy bastards and Chief Beifong."

The volunteers might be victims, but none of that matters to her.

When has she ever cared about the collateral damage when it comes to getting what she wants? Never.

[X]

The Agni Kai Triad sets up shop in the Dragon Flat Boroughs. They find the perfect place for their illegal clinic: a hideous old bar left derelict and cobweb-ridden. Azula does not know when Ty Lee left it, but she certainly did not sell it successfully. No one would want to buy it, to tell the truth.

Aigu and his associates are evidently uncomfortable as they see the brutal thuds and clever criminals surrounding them, but Azula's swift glare reminds the healers that they ought to be grateful for what they are receiving.

Kun Song leans against the former bar counter. Azula strides over to stand beside him. He seems about to bore her with pointless small talk, so she decides to ask a question that has buzzed inside of her head for weeks.

"Why did Ty Lee fall for you?" the princess demands, fixing her eyes on him. She likes the sight of the beads of sweat. It is too easy.

"Huh?" he asks, but his nervousness belies his innocence.

"_Why_ did Ty Lee _fall_ for _you_? Did my emphasis help?"

"Oh, my sister is really sick too. They were friends from some Water Tribe healing class and we met and hit it off and she wasn't even put-off by the fact that I was in the Triad. We went on a couple of dates and it was nice."

"Your sister is sick. So, her baby essentially has no chance of surviving to adulthood?"

"I don't…" Kun Song blanches. "I'm not sick."

"As far as you know. You could find out you are tomorrow, after all." Dragon Master Azula looks about to murder him, and so he shrinks. "If all goes well, that will be my baby, and I will not let my baby die. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, yes, as crystal," stammers Kun Song, nervously clearing his throat.

"Good," replies Azula, but her tone is not as cold and strong as it usually is.

The new information makes her heart race and her palms sweat.

She does not know how to cope with the illness anymore. Azula just wants to track down her love and force her to lie down on that soon-to-be-sparkling bar counter in order to delay the consumption of her body by her illness.

Yet, unfortunately, Ty Lee has chosen a horrible time to become stubborn and independent.

[X]

Azula lays her traps in the apartment above the clinic. Maybe it is an obvious place, which makes her uneasy, but there is something magnetic about this place. She still remembers stumbling downstairs, bleeding profusely in a room that now is filled with the blood of enemies and the hopeless eyes of hopeful patients. She sets her blankets where the bed used to be; she still remembers waking up there and wondering how she could have run into Ty Lee again.

_I've become sentimental_, she thinks to herself in utter disgust. _That or insane again._

When she walks down the stairs, she sees Kun Song standing guard by the door down there. It is cold. Azula does not want to be there. She considers entering the room now filled with screams, but she stands beside him instead.

Kun Song speaks first, which he should not. "I was wrong."

"About what?" Azula asks, crossing her arms.

"I thought you didn't have anything human left in your eyes. You didn't, until we set up the clinic in this place," he says.

"That night worked out very well for you, in my opinion. Maybe you were right," coldly says Azula, bitterly recalling what was temporarily blissful.

"You love her a lot more than I do," he says with a pathetic sigh.

"No, she just loves me a lot more than she loves you," Azula purrs, not missing a beat. "I honestly just think she's hot and tolerate her company."

Kun Song is stupid enough to speak out of turn but not stupid enough to protest her words.

"I was worried it was because of me that you vanished," he says, again like a fool. The man is lucky he is so good in combat and loyal to a fault.

"You think too highly of yourself. I have a disappearing act, you know? It is my only consistent quality other than high results, lightning and a silver tongue. I like to vanish from time to time," states Azula. She does not know why she is so open about that, but it cannot hurt for people to know. Those who have yet to figure it out, that is.

He should not know why she disappeared. It was largely because of him, but more so because of her conflict over the Triad. Things were complicated. Then she returned. Then she found Ty Lee and followed her to the Fire Nation. Then she left the Fire Nation again.

Azula struggles to stay in one place or one personality for long.

She does not like to think about her reasons. Reasons of a lost baby, reasons of a lost love, reasons of a lost mind.

[X]

A week into the running of the clinic, an old woman enters with a small child in her arms. Azula watches from the shadows, wondering which of them is sick. The woman sets down the little girl on the same table Azula fell onto the first time she came here, almost two years ago.

"I heard you're trying to treat people," whispers the old woman, and she says more to Aigu in a softer tone.

Azula steps forward and looks at the child.

Her eyes are gold, her hair dark. Azula sees herself. No, not herself. She sees the child she imagines having with Ty Lee, even though the unborn baby would never look that way.

"I will retrieve the donor," says Azula, and no one argues.

After Aigu takes the sample, she walks out into the city, pulling her hood over her head, and she goes out to fetch the proper kind of victim.

[X]

When Azula returns, the little girl talks her ear off despite the person in obvious pain nearby. She does not listen to anything she sees, but maintains eye contact and nods at times she hopes are appropriate.

They finish the procedure.

"Come back in three weeks," she says.

The old woman hugs her and her first instinct is to break her neck. But Azula stops herself and retreats to her den upstairs.

She does not come out for two days.

[X]

The police raid the clinic.

Azula does not have an excuse or a way to protect herself.

She kills four officers and probably should not.

Even her brother cannot save her from that.

She supposes she has never felt so defensive about a place or an idea. This clinic matters to her as much as the Fire Nation did, maybe more.

Azula sits in a cell and refuses to say a word to anyone.

[X]

Ty Lee storms into the jail, terrifying the police officers who try to stop her. Toph contacted Zuko, Zuko contacted her, now she is about to burn this building down with everyone in it. She falters when she recalls that she still has that matchbook, the one Azula left by mistake.

She shoves a young man out of the way and stands in front of the last cell in the grim corridor. Azula looks up, bewildered.

Yes, she thought she would see Ty Lee again. She knew Ty Lee would come crawling back, and Azula would heal her in the clinic, and Ty Lee would rule the Republic City underworld by her side. That is not how it happens.

"How did you get yourself into this mess?" Ty Lee tries to yell. It comes out too soft, but Azula gets the picture from the fire in her doey eyes.

"Trying to save lives. I know; it's new," Azula purrs, standing and walking to the bars. "I think it works for me. Destroyer of Worlds is just so _boring_ when I can be the Curer of the Incurable."

Ty Lee laughs. She tries to stop herself, but she cannot suppress the giggle. She collects herself.

"Azula, I heard about the clinic before now."

"And you didn't even bother to stop by?"

"You would probably strap me to a table and cut me up or something. I'm not _that _stupid."

"I would strap you to a table and cut someone else up, but close enough." Pause. "I know I am stuck in here."

"No, you're not. They said you can go back to the Fire Nation to avoid a diplomatic incident or whatever." Ty Lee sighs. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do about this, okay? I don't know what to do about anything anymore and you have to understand that, right?"

Azula says nothing at first. That tortures Ty Lee.

"There was a little girl a week or so ago," Azula says, unsure if her sincere tone is sincere or not. "I think she'll remember me. I'll remember her."

"Why does that matter?" Ty Lee snaps. She covers her mouth with her hand when she realizes she has snapped at the one person she loves most.

"I don't know. I just was thinking about the fact that we have been here before, and that I followed you because I wanted to be remembered in another light," Azula says, shrugging. "I was lying about that, but I do mean it this time."

"I'm going with you," Ty Lee quietly says. "Not _with _you exactly. I just really needed an excuse to go back home. I don't want to spend the last days of my life here."

Azula smirks. "Well, there is only one good way to spend the last days of your life."

Ty Lee blushes.

"Please don't make me fall in love with you again."

"No promises."

"I…" Ty Lee hesitates. "Okay, so I can't fall in love with you _again_. I'm still in love with you and I maybe I always will be."

"I know that," Azula says. "Now, will you get me out of this cell and cesspool of a city or not?"

Ty Lee lingers, tears briefly in her eyes, then she smiles and nods.

[X]

They do not talk on the ship.

Azula keeps her bra on.

Neither woman suggests conquering fortresses made of cargo boxes.

[X]

Azula allows them to handcuff her. Ty Lee stands awkwardly on the docks while they do that, and then follows all the way to the palace.

Then she remembers herself.

"My sister is waiting for me. She's probably worried and I'll see you around. Definitely before the baby comes and after that I think she could be like best friends with Izumi," Ty Lee says, weakly smiling.

Azula tries not to glare, but she cannot prevent herself from scowling. "You could at least stay until Zuko decides what to do with me."

"Oh, he'll put you on house arrest until you decide to disappear again," Ty Lee says. "I hope you stick around to meet my baby, though. That'd be really nice."

Azula holds back her emotions. She tries to hide.

She closes her eyes and then opens them.

"Bye," she coldly says. "Unless you have anything else to add?"

Ty Lee takes a deep breath. "It's just time to…" Pause. "I don't…" Pause. "I wish you could be the mom of this baby, but…" Pause. "It's best for us, you know…" Pause. "How do you look at the person you love and tell them it's time to walk away."

Azula's heart stops. When it starts again, she feels ill.

"You don't," she whispers. "You don't ever do that."

Ty Lee throws caution to the wind and kisses her on the lips.


	12. Chapter 12

**Epilogue**

* * *

Her pyre burns. Her twelve-year-old daughter cries. Her wife keeps her face an emotionless mask, but inside shatters over and over again.

Azula had a longer time than she could have hoped. It was difficult and unpleasant but she did not disappear for over a decade. A daughter, a life, a happy ending until the sad finale.

She sits and thinks about the little girl with golden eyes, about the daughter who very well could fall ill at any moment. Azula refuses to lose everything.

When she decides to disappear that night, packing a small bag and kissing her sleeping daughter's forehead, her brother is waiting.

"I figured," he says.

"Shut up. I can leave if I want to," Azula hisses. "You can maybe find me in Republic City." She steps forward and moves to brush him aside before he dodges and repositions himself in her way.

"Why are you going back to Republic City? What are you doing?" he asks, reaching out to grab her arm, but his sister steps back and away from him.

"I am finishing my work," she whispers, images of that ugly bloodstained bar dancing in her confused, broken head. "Take care of Azusami until I return."

And Princess Azula vanishes yet again.

**THE END**

* * *

**_A/N_****: **_This is the end. __Thank you for reading! There is technically a sequel to this story. It's called Blank Pages and is Korrasami. I've been posting it for almost two years so it's not new news or anything, but it is the continuation of this fic. I loved writing this, thank you again for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the show._


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